


Charity Case

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: ...sort of, 1953 America was Weird, Ableism, Character Development, Classism, Dramedy, F/M, Homophobia, Interracial Relationship, Legal Drama, Misogyny, Murder Mystery, Racism, Scandals!, Slurs, Stuff!, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, historically appropriate prejudice, murder!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“No,” Henry snaps. “No, you don’t. You don’t understand a damn thing about decency or decorum or the fact that if you hurt my family, if you go after them or discomfit them in any way, Mr. Johnson, I will privately see to your removal from this case.”</i><br/><i>Johnson blinks slowly at him, clearly unintimidated. “I’d like to see your efforts to that effect.”</i><br/> </p><p>Henry Lansietter is a young, up and coming lawyer who is happy to make Tillery, Indiana his home. When disaster strikes in the form of a murder, Betty Hiyashi begs Henry to represent her friend, Wanda Kovacs, in court. What starts with a very clean cut verdict evolves into a much more complicated affair, unearthing the corrupted core of the county and putting his very life in danger. How can Henry hope to win a case when it seems the whole town will do anything ensure Miss Kovacs gets the rope?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Henry Does Something Stupid for a Girl

Ron Hendrickson was murdered on April second, at eleven twenty-six at night, with a meat cleaver straight to the neck. Awful sight in the shop. Blood was everywhere, Sheriff Taylor says. And Ron’s pride and joy, his pure birch-wood countertop, well, it was irredeemable. Not that Ron terribly minds it now, being dead and all. 

Henry flips through the autopsy report again, looking down at the grizzled, naked spine protruding past a pair of shoulders. There’s something nearly comical about it, if he doesn’t think too hard, almost cartoonish in the concept. Decapitation is less common than you’d think. Of course, this is a partial work of art; Hendrickson’s head lay attached by a flap of skin and ligament. 

Ron has good shoulders, Henry thinks. Wish I had good shoulders like that. 

He casts his gaze back up to the shifting woman before his desk. Betty Hiyashi, lived in the town all her life, parents Japanese immigrants, one sister--a Sally Hiyashi--and no other affiliated relatives. Henry’s seen her around town before. They’ve spoken once or twice, a “Hello, Mr. Lansietter” and a “Hel _lo_ , Miss Hiyashi,” but this is…something else entirely. 

He sets the file down on his desk. “Thank you for coming over, Miss Hiyashi,” he says.

“Oh no, thank _you_ , Mr. Lansietter.”

“I haven’t agreed yet,” he says, tilting back in his chair. Awful habit, very unprofessional, but he’s at the stage in his life where he can stop caring about that crap. He has this firm and it’s his alone. He can do what he wants. “I’m awfully busy, Miss Hiyashi. I’m sure you understand. I’m being selected for a team to go to Indianapolis in a month for a very high-profile affair.”

She twists her arms in front of her, eyes wide and desperate. “Mr. Lansietter, please.”

“I can give you a reference,” he says. “Mr. Punsir--”

“Mr. Punsir’s won two cases in his life! I-- Sorry. But I can’t… This is the death sentence, Mr. Lansietter. This is serious.”

“I know,” he says. 

“Mr. Lansietter, you’re a good man. Please.”

He looks from her to the file and back. Wasn’t everyday you got selected to represent a senator. And Henry’s fought tooth and nail for whatever he has now. It’s an incredible honor. To be in a room with a bunch of million-year-old Harvard grad millionaires. But how many gals tell you you’re a ‘good man’? Okay, granted, that probably happens on a semi-regular basis to some, but not Henry. Being a defense attorney probably doesn’t help matters all that much. And Betty’s a good woman. Shame most people don’t warm up to her, though it’s understandable. “What’s her name?”

“I’m not telling you. I know my…my rights.”

Sure she does. “I’m taking the case. What’s her name?”

“What about your special case?” she asks and that firmness in her voice falters. 

He waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll telegram them with a denial later today. Now, what your friend’s name?”

“I… Wanda Kovacs.”

“Wanda Kovacs?” Sounds familiar. Maybe. He leans forward and writes it down. “Wanda… Kovacs. Alright. You stop in here tomorrow, Miss Hiyashi, and we’ll go meet with your friend, okay? I’ll get the papers drawn up tonight.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Lansietter! Thank you so much!” Betty’s got a good smile on her. She should be a movie star or something. 

“Don’t you worry, Miss Hiyashi. Tell Miss Kovacs the news, won’t you? I’ll see you both tomorrow. Noon sound good?”

-

“I can’t believe you.”

“Why?” A meat cleaver. Honestly, where’d that come from? He’d have to request a look at that. He knows that’s not his purpose in the trial, but he’s really curious.

“Wanda Kovacs! No lawyer in the tri-county area would touch her with a twenty-foot pole.”

“Mm. Well, luckily, I work throughout the state.”

“Henry, this is _serious_.”

“Well, of course. It _is_ a murder.”

“I-- No. Henry.” He looks up at the flushed face. Poor Josiah always gets so flustered. “Henry. Do you even know anything about Kovacs?”

“Nope.”

“Henry, she _hated_ Hendrickson! With a fiery passion. Threatened to kill him numerous times. She’s a deadman walking, for Pete’s sake.”

“That so?”

“And yet you don’t seem the least concerned.”

Henry pushes a paper toward him. “Josiah, I believe there’s a reason you’re a paralegal and not a lawyer.”

“Of course. I didn’t waste time in school as long.”

“Mmhm. And apparently you don’t recall what a criminal defense attorney does, do you? It’s not our job to _disprove_ that Miss Kovacs killed poor Mr. Hendrickson--though, let’s be honest, no one sorely missed the fellow. We simply _prove_ that the prosecution’s methods are unsound.” Josiah stares at the paper before him. “I’m not defending anybody except the Constitution. That’s our duty, Josiah. It doesn’t matter if Kovacs _is_ a deadman walking. That’s not our problem. Our problem is Sheriff Taylor and Prosecutor Whatever-His-Name-Will-Be.”

“Right.”

They sit in silence, mulling over the paper. “You can’t resist a lady, can you?”

“I’ve resisted plenty of ladies. Have to practically beat them off with a stick, with these looks.”

“I’m not trying to judge, Henry, but _Betty Hiyashi?_ Honestly? Her pa’ll ring your neck if you come anywhere near their front porch. Hell, the _town_ will.”

Henry shrugs. “Wasn’t even planning on acting at all. I don’t see any conflict, here.”

“Henry. I’m saying this because I’m your friend. This town, it ain’t worldly. You know that.”

“I’d hardly call myself ‘worldly’; I haven’t been to Europe.”

“Compared to these people? Henry, most of us haven’t left this _county._ Remember when you first came here? Everyone was suspicious of you and your fancy degrees and your slick talking. And no one’s going to be pleased if you mess with the Hiyashis, any of them. Don’t screw up what we’ve got here.”

He holds his hands up. “I won’t. Not even interested. Anyways, I’ve got to meet with our new client tomorrow. Let’s see how receptive she is.”

“She’s so vile, Henry. You so much as look at her wrong and she’ll be at your throat.”

“Hm. Then I shudder at telling her my hourly rate.”

“Oh shucks, don’t give me that image.”

Henry moves around his desk to fetch his coat, sliding one arm through. “You’ll call Sheriff Taylor before you close up, won’t you? I want to know what our prosecutor’s getting his hands into.”

“Right-o,” Josiah mutters, gingerly shoving a photo of Hendrickson’s mangled corpse out of his peripheral. 

“Henry,” he calls out when Henry’s to the door. He turns. “Henry, be careful. Please. I’ve got a bad feeling about all this.”

He tips his hat. “Always heed the intuition of a woman.” Before Josiah can retort, he slips outside.

-

Wanda Kovacs is nuttier than a box of Cracker Jacks. This is confirmed. Henry really needs to stop basing his decisions off of the smiling potential of his clients’ friends. Perhaps the only two things that prevent him from recoiling from this decision in horror and taking the first train to Indianapolis are his honor and Betty Hiyashi’s firm stance beside the madwoman. 

“I don’t need no Goddamned lawyer,” Kovacs spits. “The hell you trying to do for me here?”

“I’ve checked out your situation,” Henry says, adjusting his tie. “I can assure you, Miss Kovacs, at the very worst, I do nothing for you. At the very best, you get off scot-free. There really is no question here.”

“I heard of you,” Kovacs says. “You let Jimmy Jones get off on murder.”

“Manslaughter.”

“What?”

“I managed to prevent Mr. Jones from being put away for manslaughter,” Henry corrects, tries to be patient. “Rather, he got two years. For perjury, as it were.”

“Perjury? I’m getting one of those, aren’t I?”

“Ah. No. Well, hopefully not. I think you’re talking about a jury, Miss Kovacs.”

“Yes, that,” Betty says. “Will we be getting that?”

“If it comes to court.”

“Oh, it’ll go to court,” Kovacs says.

“Oh really?” Henry regrets this so terribly.

“Well, of course. What else could happen?”

“We could cop a plea,” he ventures. 

“Plea?”

“You could get charged with lesser crimes, Miss Kovacs. Then it wouldn’t ever have to go to court for too long if at all.” Which is far more preferable. But Henry doesn’t add that.

Kovacs ignores this. “What do you cost? An arm and a leg, I bet.”

“Thirty dollars an hour,” he says and tries not to cringe.

“Thirty!” she cries.

Betty balks noticeably. “Mr. Lansietter,” she says, “that is an awful lot of money.” 

“Yes, it is.” Henry can’t deny that. He’d be pretty miffed too, but he finds it to be a fairly reasonable price when compared to his competitors.

Kovacs turns to her friend. “I told you! I told you this was stupid! Ain’t nobody gonna defend something like me!”

“You’ll find I’m perfectly willing, Miss Kovacs.”

“And if I win, where will I be, anyways? On the streets, that’s what! Indentisted servitude!”

“Indentured.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says hastily. 

“Mr. Lansietter,” Betty says, “may I have a word with you? Alone?”

He casts a look at Kovacs, who happens to be doing the same to him. He quickly averts his eyes. “Of course, Miss Hiyashi. Right this way.”

He opens the door out of the meeting room and allows her out before closing it behind him. Before he can get a word out, she whirls around to regard him. Those are eyes that cut, he swears. “Thirty an _hour_ ,” she says.

“It’s my rate.” It sounds dumb, coming out of his mouth, in the face of her justified outrage.

“Mr. Lansietter.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? I can’t take this for free,” Henry snaps. “I have to make a living, Miss Hiyashi. Indianapolis was willing to pay me _three hundred fifty_ dollars. I turned it down for this. Be lucky I’m not asking for my money up front.”

Betty gives him this look, though, that makes him feel so rotten for ever pointing that out. “If you so obviously care about your wallet more than someone’s _life_ , Mr. Lansietter, be my guest. We’ll take our chances with Mr. Punsir.”

“He charges twenty an hour.”

“He offered his services for fifteen. What do you have to offer us, Mr. Lansietter?”

If she thinks she’s pressuring him with competition, she’s a joke. “No lawyer with half a brain would take this case, Miss Hiyashi. The only reason Punsir would try his hand at it is because he’s desperate.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just looks at him.

“Twenty-five.”

She must have voodoo powers or…or _something_. And a really pretty face. Did Henry mention that? Betty’s really pretty. 

“Twenty-three?”

She opens her mouth to say something, but he cuts her off, just to make it stop.

“Twenty. Twenty dollars a **_day_**. Final offer.”

That smile that spreads across her face is like a balm. And really, really pretty. Hollywood actress? Hell, no. Betty should be on the cover of every magazine in the nation, let alone star in every movie. Move aside, Marilyn Monroe. 

“Thank you so much, Mr. Lansietter. I really don’t know how to repay you.”

“Don’t,” he says, voice strained and tight, the reality of his decision crashing in on him. Twenty dollars a day? He’d get laughed out of University if he ever told his professors he took a job like that. He’s just swindled himself. 

“I have to go tell Wanda. You… You’ll get started soon, won’t you, Mr. Lansietter?”

“I started last night.”

When she looks down, it makes her appear almost coy. God, she’s so pretty. 

“I… I expect compensation for extra expenses.”

She laughs and her whole body lights up, the room lights up, and she turns away, toward the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Lansietter. I’ll stop by, tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles intelligently.

She slips through the door, serpentine and splendid. The resulting click might as well be a funeral bell. 

-

“You’re flipping nuts.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he spits, pushing his hair out of his face. “Gosh, Josiah, I’m the biggest fool on this side of the Mississippi.”

Josiah points his fork at him. “Henry? Stay away from that Hiyashi girl.”

“I _know_. And I _am_. She’ll be in tomorrow. You’ll see. I’m quite the gentleman around her.”

“No, I’m sure. Probably _too much_ of a gentleman.”

Henry sulks over his sandwich and stares at the stock market section of the newspaper laid out before him. “Well, if you were as pretty as a lady like that, I might be more of a gentleman to _you_ , too.”

“Hey. Don’t start down that road, Don Juan.” Josiah elbows him. “But I do have to ask and I fear. How much cut of this am I getting?”

“See, that’s the thing.”

Josiah’s face is frighteningly blank. “What?”

Henry licks his lips nervously. “…I’ll cut you check at the… Josiah, how much do I pay you?”

“Salary-wise?”

“Yeah.”

“About ninety-five dollars a week, why?”

He heaves a sigh. “No reason. Nothing’s changing. Everything’s fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I am.”

Josiah stares at him hard.

“No, really.” Henry leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “I am.”

-

He’s a Kentucky kid, by birth. He’s definitely an Indiana boy in spirit, though. It’s his home. He’s a self-made man and like hell is he going to keep anything that he _didn’t_ build himself, save for certain genetic predispositions. (He can’t get taller no matter what he does. Even took that nasty brew from the peddler in Louisville that had him bed-ridden for _weeks._ ) He likes Tillery. He likes the people, as simple as they are. 

But this is his first case in the town, not including that spat between Mrs. Mumsy and Mr. Rossi. Henry isn’t sure how to feel. He knows the people. They like him. They’re his friends. He’s seen it happen to others before him, seen their lives unravel when they’re hired by their cousins, by their neighbors, by their wives. Nobody gets that professional personality is a completely separate entity from personal. To regular people, it’s _always_ personal. 

That night, he sits in his bed (”Of _course_ I’m fine, Mrs. Robinson, I just don’t want to be disturbed tonight. I-- I-- No, that’s fine. I’m a tenant, Mrs. Robinson, not your son. Please don’t dote on me so.”) and he counts the cracks in the ceiling and he thinks, Well. 

Well, well, well.

His momma, she used to tell him to face rough situations with a smile and a just disposition. …Whatever that means. His momma was kind of an idiot. She always had her book clubs over. Henry _hated_ book club days. The whole “Oh, you look so pretty, today! Is that new?” routine over and over again. Whatever. Maybe he just wasn’t hugged enough as a child or something. 

This Kovacs woman is nuts. She’s not helping her case by being poor and uneducated and smelling kind of off, either. Henry doesn’t know what to do. Maybe he should take his momma’s advice. But his momma never approved of him from beginning to end, nor he her. 

No use brooding. He twists around and he turns out the light. He’s a regular Hamlet, moaning over his issues like this. “O, that this too too sullied flesh” et cetera, et alii. But he’s working for free, for Christ’s sake! Well, practically. Comparatively. Well, look. Henry hasn’t come all this way to ruin himself over some dame with a heart-breaking smile and a nutcase, murdering redhead. 

Even in the dark, he stares at his ceiling. He remembers Robert Brown. He remembers Robert Brown’s smiling, smug face, back in Louisville. Everything was white shit, back then. White houses, white cars, white suits, white caskets. Robert Brown was a nasty pigeon. Robert Brown’s probably married now, to some nice girl with a white dress and white skin and white hair and dazzling, white teeth. 

Henry’s lips form into a sneer. Fuck you, Robert Brown, he has to think. I’ll work for free because you always told me only fools give to charity. I’ll work for free because you always told me this was a man’s world. 

God, no wonder he left that place. Best decision he ever made. Of course, that’s not saying much, particularly considering today. He’s bitter as hell and he supposes he has a right to be, but he still wishes he wasn’t. 

“I need to call Sheriff Taylor tomorrow,” he mutters. 

He falls into an uneasy sleep after that. Dreams about Betty Hiyashi aren’t good; even his subconscious knows that. He’s not suicidal. So he dreams about Ron Hendrickson’s flap of skin keeping his body intact and he dreams of burning his savings in front of Robert Brown and he dreams about going broke without anyone ever noticing. 

Mostly, he just dreams about trains, though. God knows why.

 

 


	2. The Night of the Murder (Kovacs's Side)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry learns that Mr. Stanley Johnson, the most vile prosecutor in the galaxy, is coming to town. Additionally, the evidence against Miss Kovacs and her (barely passable as an) alibi mounts high and he's working like a plow ox to gather some semblance of a case. On the upside, he and Betty flirt rather awkwardly outside a barbershop.

 

Sheriff Taylor stops by at about lunchtime, hat in his hand. “Mr. Lansietter,” he replies to Henry’s “Sheriff Taylor.” He’s a sort of hushed bass, handsome in an aging way. A mustache eclipses about a third of his face. Henry doesn’t understand why anyone would keep something like that around. It makes him look almost cartoonish.

“How can I help you, Sheriff?” Henry says, friendly. 

Sheriff Taylor looks about, shifts his tobacco around in his mouth, beats his hat against his chest. “Mr. Berlinski tells me you’re interested in the case with Miss Kovacs.”

"That would be correct.”

“Well, I’d like that file back on Mr. Hendrickson, if that’s alright. Just came in to fetch it.”

Henry’s fingers lightly tap against the manila. “Actually, Sheriff, I’ve taken a permanent interest in this.”

“You’re defending Wanda Kovacs.” It’s not a question. Or, if it is, it’s a pretty deadpan way to pose one. 

He grunts. “Unfortunately.”

The sheriff shuts the door behind him and takes a step forward, looking seriously at Henry. “I like you, Henry. Gosh, just about everybody does. You’ve done a lot around here for a lot of people. Now, I’m speaking as a friend here: Picking up Wanda Kovacs’s case is a bad idea.”

Henry leans back in his chair. Bad habit, yadda yadda. Whatever. “It’s my civic duty, Sheriff.”

“What about that fancy-schmancy thing in Indianapolis?”

“…About that.” But Henry doesn’t elaborate. He’d rather not. He might throw up. “So, Sheriff, I’d like to keep this file around for a little while longer, ‘til I get my bearings.”

“Well, at least let me make copies for the prosecution.”

“Yeah, I was wondering. Who’s contending, here?” he asks. 

“Stanley Johnson.”

That puts all four chair legs back on the ground. “Stanley Johnson?” he squawks. 

Sheriff Taylor fiddles with his hat some more. “Some friend of the mayor’s. City-slicker. You know him?”

Henry beats his chest to avoid a coughing fit. “Stanley Johnson,” he says, “has the longest winning streak of any prosecutor in the Mid West.”

“Alright.”

“Stanley Johnson,” he says, “will do anything to win.”

The sheriff shrugs. “What’s that supposed to mean? So won’t you.”

“I’m bound by something called ‘ethics,’ Sheriff. And the law. Stanley Johnson isn’t.” Henry runs a nervous hand through his hair, groaning. “Dead meat. Kovacs and I, both.”

“Well, hey now, Henry, you can’t just throw in the towel before it’s even begun,” Sheriff Taylor protests. “You’re the best lawyer in town.”

“Yeah, and that’s between me and Mr. Punsir, who doesn’t know the difference between an affidavit and the affiant.”

He stares at him.

Henry starts straightening out the papers on his desk. “Look. Mr. Punsir’s so old and scatterbrained, he thinks the War of 1812 was yesterday afternoon and the negro is still enslaved. It’s not much of a comparison.”

“Well, he’s working with me, ain’t he? This Johnson man. I’ll keep track of him.”

“Not in the courtroom, you can’t. Only the judge can. And me, I guess.” Henry gnaws on a pen for a moment, thinking. “Say, Sheriff?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll give you the file back, but you think you can lead me around the crime scene, sometime? I’m curious about some details.”

“Sure, Henry. I wager I can do that. Five o’clock sound good?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great.” Henry gets up to shake the sheriff’s hand and give him the file. “Thanks a lot, Sheriff. I’ll do my best, I assure you that. As if this Kovacs case wasn’t hard enough.”

“You’ll pull through, Henry,” Sheriff Taylor says reassuringly. But there’s something in his face. Something Henry doesn’t like. 

Now’s not the time to delve, though.

-

“Oh! Oh! Mr. Lansietter! Mr. Lansietter, please!”

He turns from his way out of the barbershop to find--who else?--Betty Hiyashi wobbling down the street toward him. “Miss Hiyashi,” he says with a raised brow. “How excellent to see you.”

“You as well, Mr. Lansietter!” She teeters before him, face flushed and smile radiant. Her eyes are wet. She’s been laughing. 

“What’s with this new walking style, Miss Hiyashi? You seem rather unbalanced. Or, forgive me if that is the fashion, now.”

“Oh, no!” she giggles, before lifting up her dress. Before Henry can recoil like a gentleman, she says, “I’ve never worn high heels before.”

He risks a glance down. They’re blue. Nice. Very, ah, shoe-esque. She did seem taller, now that he thinks about it. On heels, they’re about the same height. Now, granted, Henry is definitely not a tall man by any means, but he does recall Betty being a little smaller. “Oh,” he says mildly. “Oh. Well, may I say they look positively stunning, Miss Hiyashi?”

She hits his arm in jest. “Don’t flatter me.”

“I’m not,” he insists, a smile tugging at his lips. 

Betty glances out at the road before turning back to him, stiffer. “Well, Mr. Lansietter, I was hoping you could come with me to see Miss Kovacs, today. Hear her side of the story.”

“Well, to be honest, I’m kind of fuzzy on the details in general, so that sounds like a grand idea. What time would you like me? To be there, I mean?” Smooth.

“Why not now?” she asks.

“I-- Okay. Yeah, sure.”

So he follows Betty all the way down to the police station where Miss Kovacs is being held, tempted to hold out his arms in case she capsizes, but they make it there without incident, amazingly enough.

“I’d like to ask you about the night of the murder, Miss Kovacs,” he says without preamble, when they enter her room. 

Her lips lift up into a sneer. “I didn’t kill anybody,” she says.

“Well, I should hope not, Miss Kovacs. But I need to have all the facts before me if I should want to make a solid case in your favor.”

She glances at Betty. “Fine. Fine, I’ll tell you. April first--”

“April second, Miss Kovacs. Mr. Hendrickson was murdered on April second.”

“I’m telling the story, aren’t I?” she snaps. “Let me tell it! Now where was I?

“April first, I went in to see Ron at his shop, okay? He’s a rude sonofabitch and I should have killed him then and there, ‘cause he was talking some stupid trash ‘bout me. Doesn’t matter what it was, I guess. I don’t remember, anyways. Man says something rude just about every time I pass there. His wife should have whipped his hide--”

“Who’s his wife?” 

“Shut _up_. Christ, Lansietter, can’t you follow basic instructions? Anyways, that was about six o’clock. I went home. I cooked dinner for my pap. He’s an old bastard. Can’t do much, these days. I went to bed. Next day, Ron was dead. End of story.”

“Not quite,” Henry says. Wanda rolls her eyes. He ignores this. “Reports say Hendrickson was murdered just before midnight on April second. You only told us about April first. There’s no way Hendrickson was dead on the morning of April second.”

“Fine. So I skipped an uneventful day, what of it? I didn’t kill him, I swear, ‘else there’d be no point in going to court over it.”

“Just… Tell me about April second, Miss Kovacs. Please.”

She scrutinizes him for a moment before leaning back. “Alright. Fine. I will. The next day, I went to work. Up at the Harringtons’ home? You know them? Whatever. I clean. It pays well. I did that ‘til four o’clock. Then I went home. Cooked dinner. Slept.”

“You didn’t see Hendrickson?”

“Well, yeah, I did. I mean, I see him everyday. I have to pass his little shop to get home. He gives me hell, you know that? Or gave. Thank God that bastard’s dead.”

Henry glances over at Betty, who sits prim and intent. He’s sagging in his chair a little, himself. He pulls himself up. “Miss Kovacs, what was the nature of your conversation with Mr. Hendrickson, that day?”

“Christ, you like the police? Deputy Warren asked the same types of questions.” She leans in toward him, conspiratorial. “That boy’s a pervert, I hear.”

He clears his throat. “That is neither here nor there, Miss Kovacs. I am asking you because I need to know when the men who want to lock you up are lying.”

She returns to her chair. “Alright. Fine. Sure. Well, I don’t remember it perfect, but Ron said to me, ‘I got a nice piece of meat for you, honey.’ ”

Henry tries not to cringe and fails. He doesn’t want to discuss why, other than that the vulgarity was discomfiting. “I see. And did you respond, Miss Kovacs?”

“ ‘Course I did. I smacked him right in his ugly mug.”

Henry tries not to make a face at that, either. “I see.”

“Then I left for home.”

“Alright. Fair enough.” He adjusts his tie. “Fair enough. I’ll have to check this with the police records of the circumstances of Hendrickson’s murder. Tonight, I’m investigating the crime scene.”

“You better find who really did this, Mr. Lansietter,” Kovacs says. “I need to thank him personally.”

He adjusts his collar. “Oh, I don’t intend to find who _did_ it, Miss Kovacs. That’s not my job. But I’d like to see how it went down, for myself.”

“Perry Mason would,” she says heatedly. “Perry Mason would figure out who did it in a day.”

“Perry Mason is a book character.” He adjusts his jacket. “And unfortunately, that’s the police’s job. They found you to be the murderer, which is incorrect. Happens. We’ll just have to point out where they went wrong, is all.”

“And you will,” Betty adds. “You will prove she’s innocent.”

“I’m doing the best I can, Miss Hiyashi. Not to toot my own horn, but that’s no small effort. You’re in good hands, Miss Kovacs. If I can’t help you, no one can.”

“That’s comforting,” she snorts.

Henry almost snorts right along with her. 

-

“How could a woman swing with enough force to almost sever someone’s head?”

“Believe me, Henry, we’ve run through just about everyone else. Kovacs is the only explanation we can find. Besides, she didn’t have just one go at him.”

Henry leans down. He sees what the sheriff meant. It’s ragged, not something clean. It’s like someone just started hacking at him. Frantically. But if so, why didn’t they keep going until they achieved decapitation? He turns to Josiah, who’s making a face, nose scrunched and lips twisted. 

“Okay. Fine. But where’d sh-- this person get the meat cleaver, of all things?”

“We talked with Jeff Granger,” Sheriff Taylor says. “He says nobody’s broke in to his butcher shop.”

“Hm.”

“Wanda Kovacs _happens_ to own a nice selection of cooking knives. Almost a full industrial set.”

“But curiously bereft of a meat cleaver.”

“You’re good at this. Yes.”

Henry stands back up, dusts his knees. “Just my stunning intellect, Sheriff.” And of _course_ Kovacs neglected to mention this in her alibi to him. What would life ever get out of being easy on Henry Lansietter, after all? “Looking at it from my angle, it appears someone’s trying to set her up.”

“But who would that be?”

“How should I know? Who has a motive to kill Ron Hendrickson?”

Sheriff Taylor hawks a loogie into his empty soda bottle. That’s talent. Henry finds himself mildly jealous. “Besides Wanda Kovacs? Oh, I suppose his wife. But we already checked her alibi. It fits. Kovacs’s story, on the other hand, is full of more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese.” He pauses. “That wasn’t a good metaphor.”

“Simile. But you have a point.” A point Henry is going to fervently deny in a month or so. Great. He turns to Josiah. “You think we should examine the murder weapon?”

“I’d rather not,” Josiah replies, looking rather green in the face. 

“Excuse me. Sheriff Tyler, was it?” Henry turns to regard some fancy-suited, fancy-spectacled, fancy-- Who the hell is he kidding? It’s Stanley Johnson. Just as he looks in the papers. 

“That our new nudnik?” Josiah mutters.

“More like the rope with which I’m gonna hang myself,” he hisses back.

“Please don’t; I need my paycheck this Friday.”

“Henry-- Ah, Mr. Lansietter, Miss Kovacs’s defense attorney,” Sheriff Taylor says, gesturing to him. “He came to check out the scene.”

Johnson extends his hand, wrist slightly limp. Henry shakes it vigorously, jaw clenched. “Mr. Lansietter. A pleasure,” Johnson says. “I’m Stanley Johnson. I’ll be overseeing the prosecution during this case.”

Friend of the mayor’s, Sheriff Taylor said. Henry didn’t know the mayor had such friends in high places. Or why he wants this case handled by such a scumbag. Unless he wants Kovacs to get the rope, which Henry can’t figure and, hey, he’s jumping to conclusions. The town hasn’t had a murder in, what, seventy years? No doubt they want to get this over with as quickly as possible. 

“I understand you own the little firm in town, Mr. Lansietter.”

He shrugs, throws back his shoulders. “Yes, I do. I generally take cases outside the county, though. This is my base.”

“I see. Are you aware of the severity of this crime your client is charged with?”

The condescending nut! “Well, it _is_ murder,” Henry snaps. “I’d figure I know the sentences for _murder_.”

Johnson raises his brow in this little, amused way that just makes Henry’s blood boil and--look--he’s quick to a temper on the best of days. 

“Get bent!” he barks. Josiah grabs at his arm.

“Damn it, Henry, shut up,” he whispers. 

Henry lets him let him out, night air smacking him with anxiety, with that bone-tiredness that slinks into his bones when he knows he’s cornered. He takes the offered cigarette and light. His fingers shake as he takes a drag. “I hate jerks like that,” he says.

“You don’t need to tell me twice, but _gosh_ , Henry. You’re gonna land us in a real fix, someday.”

“Oh, ice it,” he mutters, feeling calmer. “Johnson had it coming. He’ll have it coming again, I wager. Fools like him don’t know when to stop advancing and hounding, even when they’re all but grinding your toes into the ground.”

“I’m not quite sure where you were going with that metaphor.”

“Neither am I.” He lets the smoke inflate his lungs. Exhale. The night air. Some houses have lights on. He wonders what Betty Hiyashi is doing, right now. She’s a good gal. And maybe Kovacs isn’t, but the last thing anyone deserves is having to lose to that smug snake. 

“I’m going to prove Wanda Kovacs’s innocence, Josiah.”

And he can see Josiah out of the corner of his eye. He can see his expression. It’s pity. Henry’s too tired to get angry again, but he almost does. “Henry,” he says.

“No ‘if’s; no ‘and’s; no ‘but’s.” Wanda Kovacs is a deadman walking? What a joke. Henry’s right there on the plank with her. Dead men, though, they get last meals, don’t they? In prison, they do, or so Henry hears. “And I’m going to ask Betty Hiyashi out to dinner in her new high heels, tomorrow.”

“Henry,” Josiah says with more force. 

“She’s a great girl, Josiah.”

“Henry, don’t.”

He turns to face him, tries to make him see things from Henry’s side. “You’ve seen Stanley Johnson, yeah?”

“On just about every law journal published in the last five years,” Josiah admits. 

“I am dead, Josiah.”

“No, you’re not.”

Henry meets this with silence. This is a recursive argument. There is no point to further it. 

“Henry. Listen to me,” Josiah says. “A lot of people are depending on you. Me, Miss Kovacs, Miss Hiyashi. You can’t just give up. We’ve got to give the old college try, even if we can’t do much else.”

“We can’t.”

“Could you shut up and _listen?_ Look. You’ve got to save face. Nobody in town’s gonna trust a murder suspect who has a perverted lawyer. You gotta be respectable, even if Wanda isn’t. You’re her only shot.”

Josiah’s taller than him. Henry looks up at him shrewdly, considering. “You don’t suppose Johnson killed Hendrickson?”

Josiah scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, but think about it. Let’s say Johnson is a mastermind serial killer. Prosecutor by day, locking up wrongful suspects, serial killer by night? It’d make a great movie. And we’d nab him for it and he’d never bother another attorney or paralegal ever again.”

“Happily ever after,” Josiah mutters, though a smile tugs at his lips. 

Henry bumps his shoulder. “Chin up. We’re fatalistic, but that doesn’t have to mean we can’t be optimistic. Let’s say I do invite Betty somewhere, tomorrow, even though I won’t.”

“What makes you think she’ll take you?”

“Have you seen this face? I’ve got dames clawing at my door. I’m irresistible.”

“And white.”

“Details.”

“The stuff of harlequin fantasy.”

“You know it.”

“Henry, I’m scared.”

Henry stomps his cigarette out under his heel. “Not nearly as much as I am. I won’t fudge this up, Josiah. Not if I can help it. I won’t ask Betty out, I promise. I’m trying to do right by you all, but it’s tough. Kovacs does herself no favors.”

“Suppose Kovacs _did_ kill Hendrickson.”

“But she didn’t. Johnson did.”

“No, but seriously, Henry.”

“We’re not going down that path.” He tugs at his sleeves and hops off the stoop to Hendrickson’s shop. “I’m going home. I’ll be sleeping like a log within twenty minutes. I suggest you do the same.”

Josiah rolls his eyes. “How do you only falter for a second before getting back up? How’re you so steady?”

“One of the many burdens of perfection,” he calls out, walking backward into the night. 

-

When Henry climbs into bed, he stares at his ceiling and he does not sleep.

 

 

 


	3. Lunch with Betty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just why does the mayor want this case over with so quickly? Why won’t Johnson let anyone near the crime scene? Why is Henry so knowledgeable about pie-making? Plot intrigue!

Henry doesn’t ask Betty Hiyashi to step out, just as he promised. Something sort of the opposite happens, actually. She’s outside Mrs. Robinson’s place when he exits, a slice of toast still trapped between his teeth as he fixes his cufflinks. Henry, being the smooth ladykiller he is, proceeds to drop his toast on the ground, say some very ungentlemanly things, pick up the toast, brush dirt off it, and take a bite, before realizing Betty saw all of that and promptly turning scarlet down to his navel.

“Hi,” he says intelligently. 

“Hi,” she replies evenly. 

“Didn’t uh. Expect to see you here. Miss Hiyashi.”

“I was in the neighborhood.” Betty lives on the opposite side of town and it’s seven in the morning. Henry doesn’t mention this. 

“Oh.”

“I was wondering if you’d be interested in some coffee, later today. I’d like to talk to you about Wanda.”

“Well, I have a lot to catch up on with this, Miss Hiyashi.”

“You can bring the files. We could look over them together.”

“I’m not so sure that’s advisable--”

“I’m making a pie.”

He takes another bite of his dirty toast. “Well. When you put it like that.”

“I’ll see you at noon, Mr. Lansietter. You do know where my house is, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says, mouth dry. 

She smiles at him and turns away, walking down the street. Back to her house. She walked here. From her house. To see him. To _wait_ to see him. To invite him. To her house. For pie.

Henry watches her until she disappears around the corner. He swallows an ant in his next bite and wretches attractively. 

-

Betty’s parents aren’t home, thank God. She also has no idea how to bake a pie. 

Henry really can’t watch the catastrophe unfold for more than ten minutes, before approaching. “Excuse me,” he says. “Miss Hiyashi, if I may inquire, have you ever baked before?”

“I. Well. Yes,” she says, eyes darting to him. “Of course, I have. I baked in school.”

“I see. And you’re doing a lovely job, Miss Hiyashi, but why didn’t you slick your pan before placing your crust?”

She looks down at the bowl for a moment. “And I suppose you know all about baking pies?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

She gives him a long look at that. 

“I suppose you could say I’ve had a rather unconventional childhood, Miss Hiyashi.”

“I suppose so.” She leans against the counter, arms folded across her chest, frowning deeply. He takes an apple and starts paring it. “So, Mr. Lansietter. Do you honestly think Wanda has a chance?”

In Hell, Henry almost says, but holds his tongue. “Everyone has a chance, Miss Hiyashi. Court is supposedly the great equalizer. If Miss Kovacs is telling the truth, she should be free.”

“But it doesn’t always work like that, does it?”

He hesitates. “No. We do the best we can, though, be assured of that. Remember, the jury is supposed to be impartial. They’re who we really have to convince, not anyone in town.”

“But who _did_ kill Ron Hendrickson?” 

“If we knew that, Miss Hiyashi, we wouldn’t be in this pickle.”

She watches his hands move, twisting her lip with her teeth. “If you find that out, Wanda goes free.”

“Not my job, Miss Hiyashi.”

“She didn’t do it, Mr. Lansietter. I know she didn’t.”

He sets down the knife and looks sharply at her. “Well, if she didn’t _lie_ to her own lawyer about her alibi, her prospects would be looking a little better.”

Betty throws a glance out the window before standing up. “She’s just nervous, is all.”

“The murder weapon came from her house!”

“Don’t you raise your voice at me!” she shouts back, taking a step forward. Henry tastefully takes a step back in return. “You ask her again tomorrow, you hear? You ask again and she’ll tell you what you need to know. Wanda’s under a lot of stress, right now.”

“Secrets kept between she and I can seal her fate. I need to know exactly what her relationship with Hendrickson was. I need to know exactly what she did on April second. I need to know,” he says, “how someone can sneak into her house, steal her meat cleaver, and use it to murder Ron Hendrickson.” 

Betty simply stares back at him, lips pursed. 

“Miss Hiyashi, if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t request this sort of information. This is a very serious case with very damning evidence held against Miss Kovacs.”

“I hear the best prosecutor in the country is on the job,” she says. 

Henry shrugs helplessly. “I wouldn’t say the _country_.” More like world. “Rest assured, Miss Hiyashi, my team and I are doing our very best. It doesn’t matter how good he is--if he doesn’t have the evidence, he shouldn’t be able to win.”

“Shouldn’t,” she repeats.

“Shouldn’t,” he echoes. 

Betty touches his shoulder. “Mr. Lansietter,” she says, “I know you’ll do all in your power to help Wanda.”

Of course he will. He just hopes it’ll be enough.

-

“Can’t!”

“Can’t,” Sheriff Taylor confirms. “Johnson’s afraid you’re going to tamper with evidence.”

Henry gapes at him, looking around for some sympathy. Deputy Warren shrugs in commiseration. At least someone gives him some payoff. “For Christ’s sake!” he exclaims. “I’m the _last_ person who’d do anything like that, Sheriff!”

“Don’t tell me--I know. Mr. Johnson’s being very careful about all of this.”

“Secretive and careful aren’t synonyms. How about you tell that to Mr. Johnson? We both have to have the same information before the court.”

Sheriff Taylor holds up his hands, helpless. “Look, Henry. I really can’t do anything. I’m workin’ for Mr. Johnson, right now, when it comes to this case. I’d love to help you, but maybe you _are_ better off keeping your nose clean for a bit. Hate to make Miss Kovacs look even _more_ suspicious, having her lawyer poking about where he don’t belong.”

Henry clenches his jaw and leans back, running a hand through his hair. “Fine. Sure. Okay, then. I’ll be on my way, then, Sheriff. Let me know if the situation changes.”

“You’ll be the first to know, Henry. Don’t worry.”

He can’t help but.

-

Mayor McDonnell stops by Henry’s office at about six, when he’s closing up. “Mr. Lansietter?” he says, hat held against his stomach. 

“Mayor McDonnell.” He pushes in his chair, slings his jacket over his arm. “My hours are over, I’m afraid.”

He holds up a hand, shaking his head with a friendly expression. “That’s exactly when I hoped I would catch you, actually, Henry-- Can I call you Henry?”

“Sure,” he says, leaning against his desk and folding his arms across his chest. “What can I do for you, Mayor?”

“Henry, I understand you’re going up to bat for Miss Wanda Kovacs.”

“Yes.”

Mayor McDonnell smiles uneasily. “I’m sorry to hear that, Henry. I do suppose someone has to do it.”

Henry bristles considerably at that. “Excuse me, Mayor, but I chose this case out of my free will.”

“Of course! And that’s mighty good of you, Henry.”

“Mayor McDonnell,” he says. “It’s not good of anybody. An innocent woman is being framed and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

His brow furrows. “You don’t mean to tell me you actually believe in Miss Kovacs’s innocence, do you, Henry?”

“I am her attorney,” Henry says. He doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He doesn’t say this, though. He doesn’t want to betray any weakness in his position. “I will defend my client to the best of my ability, as should be expected.”

“Of course! Of course, Henry. Of course.” McDonnell casts a glance around the room. “I just… Surely, you heard about Mr. Johnson?”

“You bet I did.”

“Terribly sorry if that’s caused any anxiety for you, Henry. Mr. Johnson is a good friend of mine and surely you can understand that a murder has really shaken up the town.”

Henry shifts, staring impatiently at the clock. Six-twenty. He _really_ needs to close up earlier. It’s not like he’s preoccupied with any other cases, at the moment. “Of course, Mayor. If it’s such a clear-cut case, though, I fail to see the need for such a high-caliber prosecutor like Stanley Johnson.”

“Well, Henry, I just want to make sure everything’s done proper.”

He holds out his hands, jacket swinging. “Mayor, I do everything by the books.”

“Of course you do, Henry.” Mayor McDonnell puts his hat back on. “I just wanted to make sure you were well.”

“Sure.” He turns back to his desk in an attempt to dismiss him. Maybe rudeness has its uses. (Who is he kidding? It always does. The problem is its _consequences_.)

“And Henry?”

“Hm?”

“I see you’ve been getting very friendly with Mr. Hiyashi’s youngest daughter, Henry.”

He pauses for a second, eyes raising to stare at the wall. “I fail to see what my business interactions with Miss Hiyashi, a key character witness for Miss Kovacs, have to do with your ‘concern’ for me, Mayor.”

“Of course, Henry. Well, I suppose I’ll be on my way, Henry.”

“Goodbye, Mayor McDonnell.”

“Goodbye, Henry.”

Neither of them moves for what seems like a full minute. Then Henry hears the mayor’s feet shuffle and the door open and swing shut. 

He folds onto his desk and groans in what he prefers to refer to as ‘exasperation.’

-

Henry’s momma was a single parent. Not to say he was a bastard, but Henry’s pop was away a lot. Henry’s pop was a salesman, until 1941. Then Henry’s pop was fighting in the war. Henry’s pop was fighting Japs, for four years. Then he died. That’s why Henry’s momma was a single parent. Henry honestly can’t say he’s ever seen his pop, except for photos and the leftover clothes in the closet. 

Henry’s momma got the letter from some boys in uniform on March 25, 1945. That was the day before they won Iwo Jima. Henry remembers looking at her in the kitchen, looking at her cup her hand over her mouth and make this weird whimper and collapse into herself. Henry knew, then. He just knew. 

He told as much to Robert Brown, the little shit. Well, not little. ‘Enormous shit’ would be more fitting. Robert Brown seemed to be as wide as Henry is tall. Robert Brown was a footballer and prom king and once won a contest in Parents magazine for most beautiful child, when he was young. Or so the legend goes. 

Robert Brown, the enormous shit, he just shrugged and he said, “Now don’t get your panties in a tizzy. I’m going to sign up for the war when my birthday comes. Don’t think about it too much. He was doing the right thing. Everybody loses a dad eventually.”

Like he said, Robert Brown was an enormous shit. 

Henry remembers trying to hold his momma and tell her it was okay, but her face just returned to its usual cloudy, faraway look. His momma was never really there. Except for book club. (God, Henry hated book club days.) After his pop’s death, his momma just crawled further into herself, like some great tortoise. He felt like he’d have to reach and reach until he was up to his elbows in apathy until he found her again. 

Henry was ever his mother’s child, though, so he never tested that theory out. He just sat in her boat with her and peered out over the rim suspiciously. After his pop’s death, the world seemed to stop making sense. Everything was rather absurd in a way that wasn’t funny at all. Henry’d look out at the schoolyard or the park or the bus stop and he’d feel so nauseous. He’d wanted to tug on some passerby’s sleeve and point and say, “Every person there is gonna die, someday. Don’t know how, don’t know when. And none of them will probably deserve it.”

Robert Brown’s birthday was September third. By the time that came round, the war in both Germany and Japan was over. Just missed the boat. 

 


	4. The Night of the Murder (Kovacs's Side Revised)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry’s back on the trail! …Sort of. Doesn’t want to upset Stanley Johnson, after all. Heaven forbid.

  

“We need to talk,” Henry tells Kovacs, a table between them this time. It’s just the two of them. No Betty. Henry’s simultaneously grateful and terrified. He plans to be firm with her, this time. Lord knows how she’ll respond. Being firm with Kovacs seems like it’ll resemble clenching one’s hand around a barbed wired fence. 

She peers up at him, considering. “About what?”

“About how you lied to me when you told me your alibi,” he says.

“I didn’t lie.”

“You didn’t tell me someone broke into your house and stole your meat cleaver.”

She chews the inside of her check in consideration. “Yeah. What of it?”

“That’s a rather important piece of information, Miss Kovacs,” he says.

“Is it?”

“It’s the murder weapon, Miss Kovacs. It’s very important.”

Kovacs rolls her head around her neck, cracking it. Very ladylike. “Well, you know. Someone broke into my house, took my knife. Killed that bastard.”

Henry represses a groan. “How did they get in?”

“The hell should I know?”

“Was your door broken?”

“No.”

“Did you even lock your door?”

She gives him a bewildered look. “Why would I lock my door?”

Henry doesn’t say anything to that. He just stares evenly at her.

“Okay, fine, you think I’m some moron. See if I care.” She puts her head on her hand. “No. I didn’t lock my door. No, I didn’t hear nobody. But I swear to you, Mr. Lansietter, I didn’t kill Ron. I did not do it.”

Henry glances down at his notepad. “Miss Kovacs,” he says, firmly, “it does not matter if you did or did not do it, if all the circumstantial evidence points toward you and you do not have an honest, air-tight alibi.”

“But I’m innocent!” she says. “I’m innocent! They can’t charge me if I’m innocent.”

“They already did charge you, Miss Kovacs. The word you’re looking for is ‘convict.’ And yes. Yes, they can. It happens all the time.”

Kovacs is positively livid, eyes wide and jaw tense. “I didn’t do it,” she says, low and tensed.

“I don’t doubt your statement,” Henry says. “I’m simply telling you the facts. The best thing you can do is be honest. Since you didn’t kill Hendrickson, you need to convince the jury of the truth in your words. The easiest way to do this, naturally, is to tell the truth.”

“But I can still go to jail even then.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Christ,” she says, “what’s the point, then? It don’t matter if I did it or not!”

“Of course it does,” Henry says testily. “If you’re innocent, I’m going to make sure everybody knows it.”

“How?” she snaps. “How? How do you hope to do that, Mr. Lansietter?”

“Through defending your case in court.” Though what he really means is ‘I don’t know.’ But that hurts too much. Henry really has no clue. The murder weapon was taken from Wanda Kovacs’s house. She didn’t tell him. It’s damn shifty. “But in order to do that, you’re going to have to tell me what really happened, Miss Kovacs.”

Kovacs rests against the back of her chair. “Alright,” she says. “Alright. Fine. But you tell nobody about this, you hear?”

“It’s bound to come out in court, Miss Kovacs.”

She doesn’t say anything, eyes faraway.

Henry shrugs, feels the catch of his shirt against his shoulder. “I won’t tell anyone anything unless it is relevant to your case, Miss Kovacs.”

“Okay,” she says. “Lemme tell you what happened again. You take notes, you hear? I don’t want any confusions.”

“Of course, Miss Kovacs,” he says. “Now, if you please.”

“Alright. So, on my way to work, on April second, I met Ron--”

“You didn’t tell me that last time.”

“Well, I am now, ain’t I?” she snaps. “Jesus, Lansietter! I don’t trust you, you hear? Every instinct I got tells me not to tell you a damn thing.”

Henry shrugs. 

“Anyways. Yeah, Ron and I talked for a bit. That was, oh, I don’t know, seven-thirty? I know those courts like times and all that. I had to be at work at eight and I was. That’s what matters, as far as I’m concerned. 

“And we talked about, oh, I don’t know, the weather?”

“The weather,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Look, he’s a bastard if there ever was one, but we could talk about normal things, sometimes. It was supposed to rain that day. Overcast. That’s it. The clouds hung over everything. It was gray. Like, gray everything. Like, so gray, I reckon--”

“I...get the point, Miss Kovacs.”

“Whatever. So, we talked about weather and he tried to look up my skirt again, which was quickly put to a stop when his wife came back from the back of the shop. Serves him right, I say.”

“What’s his wife’s name?”

“For Christ’s sake, Lansietter! Let me tell a damn story and stop fixating on the damn wife!” She composes herself for a moment. “Alright. So, she came out and he followed her back in and I went to work, where I listened to Polly--the Harringtons’ daughter--gossip about something or other.”

“Can you recall what it was?”

“No,” she snaps. “Something about a guy. Or a man. Probably some fella she was dreaming about. Girls get like that, you know. It doesn’t matter, anyways, because she kept having to leave the telephone to calm the boy down.”

“The boy?”

“Young Werther! Christ, you don’t know about anything, do you? Stop trying to direct me! This is my story, ain’t it?  After work, I went by Ron’s again. We had that exchange I previously told you. The vile one. Then I went home and I cooked dinner and I slept. That’s that.”

“That’s that?”

“Yes. What? You think I’m lyin’?”

Henry looks down at his notepad, brow furrowing in consternation. “What about the meat cleaver, Miss Kovacs?”

“What about it?”

“Well, when did it go missing?”

“I don’t know,” she says. 

“You don’t know?”

“No. I didn’t notice it was gone until late March.”

 _“March?”_ he cries.

Kovacs gives him a long look. “Yeah,” she says. “What of it? It’s been gone for a while. I figure the murderer stole it sometime in March. It’s that prethinking stuff.”

“Premeditation.” Henry leans back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling, numb.

“That bad or what?”

“You’re saying Hendrickson’s murder wasn’t a crime of passion; it was premeditated, planned, cold-blooded murder.” Henry clears his throat. “Miss Kovacs, someone’s wanted Hendrickson dead for a while, I think. Do you know anybody who’s wanted Hendrickson dead as long as you?”

“Nope,” she says. “Far as I can tell, everybody loved Hendrickson. ‘Specially the mayor.”

“The mayor?”

“Oh, yeah. He’d stand around Ron’s counter all the time on Saturdays.” Wanda gives him a puzzled expression. “What’s Mayor McDonnell got to do with anything?”

“I’m not sure,” Henry says. “But thank you for telling me what happened, Miss Kovacs. I’ll do my best to work with your account and the police record to piece everything together, before the trial.”

Kovacs rolls her eyes. “You better be, what with the rate you’re charging.”

Henry grins uncomfortably and slips out the door. 

-

Stanley Johnson walks into his office. Stanley Johnson, famed prosecutor. Henry doesn’t take too kindly to having to discuss anything with Stanley Johnson, scum of the Earth--or of lawyers, at the very least--but it appears to be a necessity as he closes the door behind him with a certain sense of finality to it. Henry tries not to think about it too hard, to think about Stanley Johnson too hard, and he nonchalantly fixes a few pieces of paper on his desk.

“Mr. Lansietter,” Johnson says, after a moment.

“Mr. Johnson,” Henry replies. Pretty even, so far. Alright. Great. Good going, champ. You’re on a roll. Pretty soon, you’re gonna be a class act lawyer in the Supreme Court, scaring the pants off every prosecutor in the nation.

“I would like to discuss some matter of your involvement in Miss Kovacs’s case.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he says. “You see, I’m rather concerned about your, ah, intensity with which you present yourself in her defense.”

“Well, that’d be my concern, wouldn’t it?”

Johnson fiddles with a cufflink. “Of course, Mr. Lansietter. Absolutely. But, you see, I’d be worried for your own safety, if I were you.”

Henry bristles at that. Inwardly. On the outside, he’s cool. He’s fine. He swears he is. He thinks he is, at least. “Excuse me, but is that supposed to be a threat, Mr. Johnson?”

“No,” he says. “Simply some friendly concern for my fellow lawyer.”

Henry runs a hand through his hair. “I see,” he says. “Alright. Well, Mr. Johnson, I believe I’ve heard enough concern.”

“I’m looking into you, you know,” he says.

Henry pauses. “Pardon?”

“I’m looking into you. Your background. I like to know what I’m up against, Mr. Lansietter.”

“I should hardly think that necessary, Mr. Johnson.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really.”

Johnson glances about idly, turns his eyes to the few and far between frames on the walls, the reminder slips haphazardly tacked on the bulletin board, the crooked floorboards, things Henry’s very proud of because they’re _his_. He wants to spit at Stanley Johnson. He wants to curse at him. “It’s a nice firm, Mr. Lansietter,” he says. “Recent graduate?”

“About three years, now.”

“I see.”

“I graduated top of my class,” Henry says.

“Harvard?” Johnson inquires.

“Indiana State.”

“...I see.”

Henry fixes his desk needlessly once more. “Mr. Johnson, I don’t see why looking into me is necessary. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“Birthplace?”

“Louisville. Why? That has nothing to do with Wanda Kovacs.”

“But everything to do with her lawyer.”

Henry stares evenly at him, unblinking. “You are trying to scare me, Mr. Johnson,” he says. “I do not appreciate it.”

Johnson looks back impassively. “You seem to know much about me, Mr. Lansietter. It is only fair I return the favor.”

“I don’t know of you beyond a professional capacity,” he says. 

“But you could.”

“I presume so.”

“Pray tell me, Mr. Lansietter,” Johnson says, “why there appear to be no records of you, previous to your stint at university?”

Keep fixing that desk. It’s doing wonders for you. Pick up paper weight, set it back down two inches to the right. Stellar. “Surely there must be a mistake,” Henry says smoothly. “You might want to hire a more legal private investigator.”

“I can’t find anyone with your last name in Kentucky, Mr. Lansietter.”

“You work quickly, don’t you, Mr. Johnson?”

He shrugs, a barely perceptible motion. “I have priorities, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Well, perhaps your priorities should be more geared toward convicting Miss Kovacs.”

“She does that on her own,” Johnson says. “I’m rather surprised you bother to assist her, looking at your relatively fresh record. A loss like this would be a tragic blow.”

Henry shifts in his chair, indignation and anxiety warring at the back of his neck. “That is my concern, I believe, Mr. Johnson. Likewise with my name, my birthplace, and my family.”

“I understand.”

“No,” Henry snaps. “No, you don’t. You don’t understand a damn thing about decency or decorum or the fact that if you hurt my family, if you go after them or discomfit them in any way, Mr. Johnson, I will privately see to your removal from this case.”

Johnson blinks slowly at him, clearly unintimidated. “I’d like to see your efforts to that effect.”

He glances up at the ceiling for some form of guidance. Nothing comes. Of course. “Mr. Johnson, I believe this meeting of ours, as pleasant as it’s been, may have to come to a close. I have a lot of work to do.”

“I’m sure,” Johnson says.

But he doesn’t move. No, he stands there, looking at Henry. And Henry knows it’s a power play--he’s seen enough of them in his day--and he doesn’t back down. He looks right back, with a certain sort of vitriolic loathing rising in his throat, thick, like bile. 

He swallows it back down. Johnson turns carefully and he leaves.

Then he gags into his trash bin, hacking spit and fear at the bottom until his lungs and chest ache. 

-

“I’d like to speak to the Harringtons, if possible,” Henry tells Sheriff Taylor.

“The Harringtons? What’ve they got to do with this?”

He waves away the confusion in the Sheriff’s voice. “I have a hunch.”

“Well, maybe I should--”

“No,” he says quickly, before composing himself. “No. It has nothing to do with the murder, Sheriff. Just Miss Kovacs and her alibi. That’s all. She works up at their home.”

He gives Henry a long look at that, searching. “Alright,” he says. “Alright. I’m trusting you, Henry. They live uptown, on the hill. The big white house?”

“Of course.” He nods. “Of course. Don’t worry about a thing, Sheriff. I just want to poke around, see the circumstances of Kovacs’s employment.”

Sheriff Taylor kicks at the ground. “I worry about you, Henry.”

He does too. Particularly after Stanley Johnson’s unsubtle attacks against him. “No need, Sheriff. I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself.”

He shrugs. “There’s a lot goin’ on in this town, Henry. A lot of politics.”

“What’s that have to do with Hendrickson’s murder?”

“I don’t know,” Sheriff Taylor says, face weary and drawn. “I just don’t know.”

-

“Hello? Hello, this is Henry Lansietter, Miss Wanda Kovacs’s attorney. I-- … Yes. … Mmhm. … Yes, I understand your family employs her? … Oh. Well, yes. Employ _ed_. … Yes. … Yes, I understand completely, Mrs. Harrington. … Well, hopefully not. 

“… I’m not open to discussing the circumstances of the case, Mrs. Harrington. … Yes, legal process. … When it comes to trial, you can see for yourself, Mrs. Harrington. I’m no clairvoyant.

“… Well, yes. Actually-- … Actually, that’s why I was calling, Mrs. Harrington. I was wondering if I could speak to your family in person? … Of course. Yes, this is short notice. … Next week? I’m not so-- … Of course, Mrs. Harrington. I understand you may have prior obligations. … However, I’m a little squeezed for time, myself, I-- … Yes, Mrs. Harrington. … My most sincere apologies. You choose what’s best for you. … Of course. … Yes. 

“… Next Tuesday? Sounds fine to me, Mrs. Harrington. Do you mean to say your family will be gone until next Tuesday? … Oh. _Just_ you. … Well, I hope you enjoy your Ladies Chastity Event, Mrs. Harrington. … Yes, it _is_ important to keep the youth in line. … Well, I-- … I hardly think myself a moral paragon, Mrs. Harrington, true, but-- 

“… Betty Hiyashi? Yes, I am familiar with Miss Hiyashi. … She’s a key character witness for Miss Kovacs. … Well, of course your daughter would have seen us on the street together. We’re very intent on giving Miss Kovacs fair representation. … No, we weren’t getting ‘friendly,’ Mrs. Harrington. What sort of question is that? … Your daughter has a very active imagination. … No. … No. … I don’t appreciate this series of invasive questions, Mrs. Harrington. I simply called to set up a meeting with you for the purpose of confirming the circumstances of Miss Wanda Kovacs’s employment. … No. … No, thank you. … Mrs. Harrington, I’m a very busy man. I must be going. … No. … Goodbye, Mrs. Harrington. … Goodbye. … I-- … No, thank you. Goodbye.”

Josiah arches a brow at him. “What was _that?”_

Henry rubs his face, groaning. “Margaret Harrington. She’s Kovacs’s employer and also, as I’ve learned, resident town gossip.”

“ _Oh._ Jeepers, we need Mrs. Harrington for our defense?”

“No. Or… I hope not. I _really_ hope not. But I can’t even see her until next week.” The desk is cool under his cheek and he’s not setting his head down because he feels hopeless. These are the actions of a victorious man, clearly. “I don’t have that kind of time, to sit around some chattering crone.”

“Hey, that’s three hours’ wages adding up,” Josiah says, cupping his head in his hand, stifling a yawn. “Free money. Be positive.”

Henry swallows a lump in his throat. “Hm.”

Josiah looks at him. 

“I might, ah, stop by tomorrow. A surprise visit.”

“Mrs. Harrington’ll wring your neck.”

“She won’t be there.”

“No?”

“Out of town,” Henry says. “Some convention old women go to.”

“Well.”

“The Harringtons are suspicious,” he continues. “I have a weird feeling about that family.”

“What gave you that? They’re Wanda’s boss. So what?”

“I don’t know.” He glances at up Josiah. “But I’m going to figure this out. Something’s damn fishy about everything, here.”

 


	5. Young Werther

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry begins his own investigation into the murder of Ron Hendrickson. …Sort of. In the process, he learns a little more about the curious Young Werther, his…interesting relationship with the local law enforcement, and tries not to throw up when Betty and he step out to a diner. For case work, of course. _(TW: Racist and ableist slurs.)_

 

“Hello, Miss Harrington,” Henry says. “I’m Miss Kovacs’s lawyer.”

Polly stares at him.

“I was wondering if I could have a word with you or Mr. Harrington or Werther?”

She barks out a laugh at that. “Oh! Oh, you were the man ma was talking about, yesterday. The Jap-lover.”

Henry composes himself for a moment. “I can assure you, Miss Harrington, that my relationship with Miss Hiyashi is strictly platonic. Now--”

“Come in, Mr. Lansietter,” she says, gesturing to the side. He follows her into the foyer. 

The Harrington home is not so much a mansion as a very large house. He’s not sure if there’s any distinction. It’s well-maintained. It has white walls. It has an upstairs and a basement and an attic and a garage. It has pillars on the porch. It’s nice. It’s not what Henry thinks of, though, when he thinks of a Rockefeller or a Carnegie-type rich. Not enough peacocks in the yard, he supposes. Do rich people have peacocks in their yards? It seems like something they’d do.

“So,” she says. “What do you want to talk to me or my pa or my brother about?”

“I’d like to know what kind of employee Miss Kovacs was.”

“I don’t know.” Polly sits down on the couch. “She cleans and she cooks. Or, well, she _did._ We don’t hire murderers.”

“I can assure you, Miss Kovacs is no murderer.”

“That so?” Her eyes drift to the ceiling. “Well, you must be pretty desperate to prove it, if you’re wagering on her scrubbing ability to save her.”

Henry grinds his teeth. What a rude young woman. His momma would have-- Well, never mind that. She would have disapproved, surely, but his momma was also a sore conservative if there ever was one. “Miss Harrington,” he says, “is there anyone else in your family who would be able to tell me more about Miss Kovacs?”

“Besides my ma?” she says. “Who, obviously, you don’t want to talk to, else you would have waited ‘til Tuesday to discuss with her.” Henry winces. “Nope. But my pa’s out of town, right now, working for some bank up in Indianapolis for the next month. I could have you see my brother.”

“Werther?”

“Young Werther,” she corrects him. “I doubt it’ll do you much good, though.”

“Kids can know more than you give them credit for, Miss Harrington.”

Polly gives him a shrug coupled with a strange look. “Fine. Follow me.”

-

Young Werther lives in his family’s attic. Young Werther is also actually twenty-one. Polly leaves him there, telling Werther to “play nice,” whatever the hell that means. 

“Hi, Werther,” Henry says.

“Oh,” Werther says.

Young Werther is five foot nine and maybe one hundred thirty pounds. He’s a gangly, awkward thing. He looks like he’s never brushed his hair in his life. “My name’s Henry Lansietter,” he says. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Wanda Kovacs.”

“Oh.”

“Mind if I sit down?”

“No.”

Henry approaches the bed and seats himself. 

 _“Hey!”_ an indignant shriek emits from the mattress. 

He leaps off, startled. “Um,” he proclaims. 

A man’s head appears from under the frame, looking up at him blearily. 

“Deputy Warren?” Henry’s absolutely gobsmacked. “What’re you doing here?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says hastily. 

“To be honest, Deputy, I’m not quite such _what_ it looks like.” Henry casts a puzzled look back to Young Werther, who’s wringing his hands. Henry’s rather sure most men don’t reside under attic-dwellers’ beds, so naturally, this is a very unexpected and concerning occurrence. But he still isn’t sure _how._

“Werther lost something.”

“So you’re under the bed?”

“Mmhm.”

“Oh,” Henry says. 

“I didn’t find it, by the way,” the Deputy tells a distraught Werther. 

“Oh,” Werther says.

“Are you two friends?” 

“Yes,” Werther says.

“In a sense,” the Deputy mutters. “But Henry, what are _you_ doing here? I didn’t know you knew the Harringtons.”

“I don’t,” Henry says. “But I’m constructing Kovacs’s case.”

“I see.” The Deputy rises, brushing himself off, hair askew. A dust bunny clings to his shirt. “Well, Henry, I doubt Werther here knows much about Kovacs.”

“Well, I think I’ll ask him myself.” He turns to Werther. “Did you know Miss Kovacs very well, Werther?”

Werther mutters out something incomprehensible, staring at the Deputy. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What was that?”

He shrugs. 

“Could you look at me for a second, Werther? Thank you. Have you ever spoken to Miss Kovacs?”

He shrugs again. 

“Have you ever _seen_ her?”

Shrugs.

“Do you know who I’m talking about?” Maybe his hunch was just prideful stupidity. …Or that glass of bourbon he downed last night.  

“…Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Henry?” the Deputy says. “Henry, you ain’t gonna get much out of Werther here. He’s a retard. You know? Slow. Dumb. That’s why he’s gotta stay up here.”

Henry purses his lips, looks between the two of them. “I see,” he says slowly to let them know that no, he doesn’t see. “Well, this has been disappointingly fruitless in regards to Wanda, I’m afraid. I might as well take my leave.”

“She gave me food.”

He turns. “She what?”

Werther shifts, glances to the Deputy, who has no expression. “Food. I. She’d come up, sometimes. You know?”

“Hm.”

“Danishes,” Werther says, careful. His right hand spasms. His face is drawn, strained. “I--”

“Werther,” the Deputy says lowly.

Werther bites his lip and shrugs. 

“Danishes,” Henry repeats. He nods. “Thank you, Werther. I’ll be going now. If you have anything else about Wanda, don’t hesitate to ring me up, alright? Just ask the operator for me.”

“Oh, Werther’s not allowed to use phones,” the Deputy says.

“Well,” Henry says. “You just tell your friend here and he can tell me. You can do that, can’t you, Deputy?”

“I suppose.”

He nods to them both, stone-faced deputy and pained recluse, before going down the ladder.

-

“The kid’s a closet case, but I’ll be darned if he’s retarded.”

“Young Werther? He’s been retarded as long as anybody’s known,” Betty says, shrugging. “But why are you looking into him as a character witness? 

Henry sulks over his hamburger. “I’m not. I thought the Harrington angle would give me a better case. How was I to know their son was a kook?”

“I could have told you that’s a lost cause, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Henry,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“I mean, I just, if we’re going to spend so much time together that it is in such a capacity that we’re going to _lunch_ together, you can be a little less formal.” Was that even English? Did he make any sense there? Was his message clear or...or what?

And with his heart hammering in his ears, she makes this careful, contemplative expression. “I suppose. Allow me to return the favor, then. Betty’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he says, mouth dry. “Um. You gonna drink that?”

She moves her milkshake closer to her side of the booth. “Of course. It’s not often young men buy me lunch. I intend to enjoy every last bit of a free meal.”

“I doubt that,” comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. “I’m sure you get lots of guys.”

She stares at him. She’s not stupid. And shit. Shit. Shit. “Well, I’m sure your pockets must be near-empty with all the girls you buy lunch for, Mr. Lansietter.”

“No,” he says, eyes falling to the placemat. “No, I don’t take girls out for lunch.” His pockets are empty for a different reason. A reason that is sitting right in front of him. 

“Too thrifty?”

“Far too thrifty,” he agrees. “I’m rather cheap, I’m afraid, Miss Hiyashi.”

“I believe it,” she says. “You charge an exorbitant rate, Mr. Lansietter.”

“I need to afford my housing and staff and loans. I wouldn’t charge that much if I didn’t have to, Miss Hiyashi, I assure you that.”

“You could handle charging twenty a day, for Wanda.”

“Plus expenses.”

“Of course.”

“Well, that’s different,” he says. 

“How so?”

“You’re a shrewd debater, Miss Hiyashi. I had no choice.”

She ducks her head. “That’s a bold-faced lie, Mr. Lansietter, and you know it.” And the sun, through the window, is in her hair and her face and lights up the bit of shoulder peaking out of her shift dress and her eyes, the way they trail down to the table, they just. She just. She’s just so very lovely. 

Henry leans in, intent. “Miss Hiyashi,” he murmurs, “you’re very exceptional.”

Betty looks up at him, considering, until Suzie Schriber comes by with the bill. “You want this, Mr. Lansietter?” she asks, popping her gum.

“Yeah,” he says, reaching out to take the slip. 

“Mr. Lansietter, that’s unnecessary,” Betty protests. “I was joking, before.”

He arches a brow. “I insist, Miss Hiyashi.”

Suzie’s staring at them. Henry doesn’t like that. 

“It’s the gentlemanly course of action,” he continues. “No woman should ever pay for a meal when a man’s present, I say.” He throws two dollars on the table and gets up. “Keep the change, Miss Schriber. I’ve got to be on my way, Miss Hiyashi. If you’ll excuse me.”

Her fingers skim over his jacket as he walks by and he doesn’t flush or shudder or anything because her hand is probably soft and small and attached to her. He quakes because he knows he’s in trouble. He’s in real bad trouble. 

Kovacs is only the tip of the iceberg.

-

“Henry?”

“Hello, Deputy Warren.” Henry adjusts the telephone on his shoulder, glancing at Josiah, who ducks his head back to the file on Kovacs’s damned knife set. “How may I help you?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m all ears, Deputy.”

“It’s about Young Werther, Henry.”

“Sure.”

“I want you to stay away from him, okay? He needs stability. You shook him up bad, today.”

“Sure, Deputy. I’m really sorry about that. He talk about Kovacs anymore after I left?”

“Of course not. Werther doesn’t like to talk. It hurts his throat.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know about us in town, Henry.”

“Deputy, I’m sorry. No need to get all sore; I didn’t know.”

“Just... Just, Henry. If you go anywhere near that kid again, I’ll know.”

Henry hears a knocking on the door. Cranes his neck and sees through the window that it’s Betty Hiyashi. He glances at Josiah meaningfully. “Of course, Deputy.”

Josiah stands up to get the door. “I’ll know and I’ll make you wish you didn’t, alright? I’ll string you up by the flagpole at the firehouse and let everybody know you like to harass retards.”

“How subtle,” he notes dryly.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, I’ve gotten three threats this week, Deputy, and I’d have to say yours is the most straightforward of them all.”

“Is that good or bad?” The Deputy sounds horribly confused, losing his steam.

Henry shrugs. “Just different. Definitely preferable.” Betty smiles at Josiah and Henry feels a twinge of sickness in his gut. “Look, Deputy, I’ll try not to do anything to bother you two again. I didn’t know.”

“You _won’t_ bother him. There ain’t no ‘trying’ about it.”

“Alright, Deputy. Alright. I won’t go within twenty paces of Young Werther if I can help it.”

“Twenty? _A hundred!”_ he cries.

“Alright. Alright.” He holds up his hands in defense though it doesn’t do much, unless the Deputy is some sort of psychic and can see through telephones. “I promise, Deputy. On penalty of being strung up by the firehouse.”

Henry can hear Deputy Warren grumbling on the other end before, “Okay. I just wanted to get that out there, Henry. Have a nice day.”

“You too, Deputy.” He sets the receiver down. “How may I help you, Miss Hiyashi?”

 She steps forward, face bright. “I just spoke with the prosecution.”

“Oh?”

“He spoke rather highly of you, Mr. Lansietter.”

He snorts. She gives him a sharp look. He flushes. 

“Mr. Johnson’s very good at putting on a public face, Miss Hiyashi,” Josiah says. 

“He seemed quite sincere.”

“What’d he want to talk to you about?” Henry asks.

She shrugs. “How we knew each other. Since I’m Wanda’s friend, I’m not terribly surprised he would want to know things about me.”

“What’d you say?”

“About what? How we knew each other or how I was Wanda’s friend? I was rather vague to him; I don’t like people prying into my personal affairs.”

He relaxes marginally at that. “I see.”

“He did ask a lot about you, for some reason.”

Josiah gives him a questioning glance. Henry can only swallow. “Yes?”

“I told him you were a most professional lawyer.”

Josiah snorts, this time. “Well, thank you for the compliment, Miss Hiyashi,” Henry says.

“Oh, I’m not saying I was being truthful,” she says, stifling a smile. “Though you _are_ a very intent lawyer, Mr. Lansietter. As I said, I don’t like people prying into my personal affairs.”

He nods. “Of course, MIss Hiyashi. Of course.”

“He asked me where you live, if I knew your parents.”

“Really.”

“Of course, I didn’t tell him either way. He could simply ask you those things if he were so curious. It’s rude to gossip.” Betty bites her lip and he has this strange feeling, this horrid feeling. 

“Gossip, Miss Hiyashi?”

She flushes, eyes darting to the side. “Pure nonsense, Mr. Lansietter. I’d never participate in such affairs.”

His heart hammering his head, he leans back in his chair, steadies his breathing. Tries to give an air of nonchalance. “Give me a few of these rumors, if you will, Miss Hiyashi.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Mr. Lansietter.”

“I insist.”

He hears her take a breath. “Well, you know everyone thinks Wanda...killed that man, Mr. Hendrickson.”

“Of course.”

“I suppose that’s the big one. I... They say you’re-- Now, believe me, Mr. Lansietter, I set anyone straight who dares open their mouth about it. They say you’re only taking Wanda’s case for...favors.”

He rolls his eyes. Not terribly surprising.

“But I... I, that’s not the worst, Mr. Lansietter.” He hears her shift, hears her dress catch on her legs. Tries not to think about her legs. “Some say you’re, ah, you’re illegal.”

“Illegal?”

“Come down from Canada, with a fake name.”

 _“Canada?”_ He sits up, bewildered. “Why would I ever come down here from Canada with an alias?”

“I don’t know,” she counters. “It’s all silly, anyhow. They say there’re no records of you anywhere.”

“You’ll easily find my name in my college directory.”

“I’m sure. _I_ don’t disbelieve you, Mr. Lansietter. But some fools spread rumors; you know how it is in a small town.”

Does he ever. 

“There are others, of course,” she continues. “I heard that you work for the government and the murder was staged. Social experiment.”

“I heard that one,” Josiah says.

Henry tries not to groan. “I can assure you, Miss Hiyashi,” he says stiffly, “that none of these rumors are true.”

“Of course they aren’t,” she says. “Of course.” But her face. Her face. 

“Are there any you would wish for me to dispel for you?”

She laughs hollowly. “Oh, Mr. Lansietter, I trust in you completely.”

“I’ll tell you anything,” he says. 

Josiah shoots him a look, but he only has eyes for Betty. She clears her throat. “Birthplace?”

“Louisville.”

“Louisville, Kentucky?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never been to Kentucky.”

“It’s alright. No worse than any other place.”

“Mother?”

“Alive. In Louisville. Harriet.”

“Father?”

“Dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t kill him.” But Henry still feels his bones creak and sigh, thinking about it. Thinking about momma. Stupid, nasty momma. How he hated his momma, especially after pop died. She didn’t do a damn thing for him, ever. All she did was make him sit through book club meetings.

“Siblings?”

“None.” He examines his paperweight. “Is that all? Are you satisfied?”

She fixes her dresses, flustered. “I suppose,” she says. “I never meant to pry, Mr. Lansietter.”

“You didn’t. I invited you to. Any other questions?”

She purses her lips before thinking better of it. “No,” she says. “Thank you, Mr. Lansietter. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, Miss Hiyashi. I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

As the door slides shut, Josiah’s eyes slide to him. “Kentucky.”

“What of it?”

“You never told me your pa was dead.”

“I don’t see what it has to do with lawyering,” he snaps. 

“Henry. I’ve been working with you for three years. You never told me any of that.”

“It’s anecdotal.”

“Apparently not when Betty Hiyashi is concerned.”

He looks at Josiah, a warning on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back. “I’m trustworthy. I need to prove to my clients that I’m trustworthy.”

Josiah shakes his head. “Whatever.” He sounds tired. “Henry, I try. I try to keep you out of trouble. You got no filter, you know that? I try to haul your hide out of danger, but when you’re so intent on ending us--”

“I don’t give a care about her!” he says louder than he intended to, rising from his desk. For all his presentation, he doesn’t feel aggressive. Or maybe he does. Trapped, aggressive, is there a difference? Henry gets angry a lot; he knows this. It muddles him up. “I don’t! You hear me?”

“Lemme tell you another rumor, Henry: You and Betty are stepping out.”

His blood freezes. “No,” he says.

“That’s the word around town.”

He remembers Polly Harrington’s lips curve around the words, around ‘Jap-lover.’ “No.”

“You can’t talk to her anymore, Henry. Not beyond a professional capacity,” Josiah pleads. “Promise me, Henry.”

His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. He doesn’t say anything. Josiah gives a great, long-suffering sigh.

-

Henry’s best friend growing up was a girl named Patti Jones. Henry _hated_ Patti, though he supposes it wasn’t her fault. He only saw her at book club meetings. He only ever saw anyone at book club meetings, if he were to ignore his classmates and Robert Brown (God, he hates that jerk.) 

In case he wasn’t clear, Henry has always hated book club meetings. 

Henry remembers one particular instance, one particular meeting, where they were all reviewing _The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_ , which Henry had read, but he did not participate in the conversation. It seemed like every other week was an Agatha Christie. No. Instead, Henry sulked. 

Patti Jones, his best friend, had, naturally, tried to get him to participate in book club. “Oh,” she cried. “You always have such wonderful insight the other ladies don’t have.”

“No, I don’t,” he had retorted. “I just point out the obvious things and people assume they’re profound.”

Mrs. Willsby called out to him, beckoning him to join their damned circle. He dragged his living corpse over, dutiful and chivalrous as ever. Henry’s always been a Goddamn saint, he swears. “What did you think of the murderer?” she’d asked him.

“I hated it because there was no way the reader was going to figure it out,” he said.

They all chortled. He hated that, too. 

“Did any of you figure out it was the narrator?” he snapped. “No? No, I didn’t think so. Narrators have a certain sort of obligation. They’re your one view at a situation. It’s like hearing only one witness’s testimony of a crime.”

Giggles. “You’ve been reading your Perry Masons again, haven’t you?”

His momma’s dead eyes slithered over to him. “I thought I told you to stop reading those,” she said as soft and dull as she said anything. 

“I was just trying to prove a point,” he said, trying not to grit his teeth. 

“I swear,” Patti said, tittering, “you wish you had somebody like Perry Mason.”

“No, I wish I _was_ Perry Mason.”

More laughter. Raucous laughter. Howling laughter, like a bunch of female spotted hyenas. Cackling and hiccuping and snorting all over themselves. Henry is quite confident he will never meet anything more sadistic than a book club. Mrs. Humphrey wiped tears from her eyes. Mrs. Randell smiled into her embroidered handkerchief. 

Henry threw up in his mouth. His face flushed. He had to urinate. His eyes watered. His fingers knotted into the fabric that was his clothing. 

“Please stop,” his momma muttered to him. 

Not to the book club. To him. 

And Henry remembers looking at Patti Jones helplessly, gaping like a fish and sucking in air and biting his tongue, trying not to start weeping like a little girl, and Patti’s eyes just twinkled and she just smiled at him, laughing. It was the kind of face that deserved to eat shit and like it.

Henry would have smacked her across that little face with her brown ringlets if he didn’t have the horrid chains of human decency confining him to his chair. Patti Jones had freckles all over her face and she was ugly. Henry found her very ugly. She had crooked teeth and big ears. 

He remembers slinking away, up to his room. He sat there, on the floor, staring at his closet and his half-finished ham radio on the night table and he seethed. He seethed and he seethed until he was hyperventilating and he was crying and that certainly wasn’t what good men did, not at all. 

Henry doesn’t cry as often as he used to. He’s good about that, now. Men keep stiff upper lips. It’s all in the brain chemistry, you know. Women are terribly prone to hysteria. What a horrid burden. Henry’s heard of cures for those poor Ophelias, but thinking about it usually makes him blush in shame. 

The funny thing is Henry’s positive he probably still cries more than his momma ever did (of course, coma patients don’t cry, so it’s hardly a comparison) and he cries maybe once a year. (Three times, last year, actually. Once in March, another in June, and the third in November.) It confuses Henry, when he cries, because he wants to figure out how to stop immediately. There was something that caused it and he needs it gone. 

When Henry was young, he was no different. But he couldn’t eliminate book clubs. There’d surely be a national uprising from housewives everywhere if he did that. But still. If he became a Supreme Court justice, he could try to order book clubs as unconstitutional, on grounds that they are the cause of misery for young boys everywhere. 

“Henry?” He sits up in his bed. “Henry?” It drifts from outside.

Stumbling out, still in his underwear, he reaches the window, peering out. Catching sight of him, Betty Hiyashi steps out of the shadows, waving. 

Blushing horribly, he moves away, clutching his shoulders with each arm. He’s indecent, after all. “Hello, Miss Hiyashi,” he says.

She smiles at him and he smiles back before he can think better of it. 

“A woman like you shouldn’t be out alone at a time like this.”

"Is that concern, I hear, Mr. Lansietter?”

“Of course,” he says. “What would you like to discuss, Miss Hiyashi? I’m afraid I’m rather indecent, at the moment, but if you give me a few minutes--”

She waves away at his offer. “I can take care of myself, Mr. Lansietter. It’s only nine and my sister walked me here. She wanted to see Suzie Schriber.”

“Oh.”

“I decided to see you, while they were chattering.”

He shrinks a little further away from the window. “You should have rung me up,” he says. “I was sleeping. I wouldn’t have been if you told me.”

“You weren’t sleeping,” she says.

“No, I wasn’t.”

She takes a few steps up and Henry wonders what people would think if they saw this. Josiah’d have a fit. “Henry?”

“Hm?” He clutches at his shoulders, fingers scrabbling. 

“Your name’s not really Lansietter, is it?” she says softly.

“No,” he says. “No, it’s not.”

 

 

 


	6. The Night of the Murder (Eliza’s Side)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry looks into that “damned wife." ...Sort of. Turns out she’s definitely muddying the investigation. Talk about a conflict of interest. Also, Stanley Johnson’s apparently out for Henry's blood. But that might not be the worst of his problems.

His last name _is_ Lansietter. Sort of. He doesn’t know what possessed him to say it wasn’t, and to Betty of all people. He changed it to Lansietter in ‘45. Legally by ‘46. It just made sense. He’s not discussing it, he won’t. 

That’s not the problem, right now, anyways. “Why do you need to see Hendrickson’s wife, Henry?” The Sheriff is terribly befuddled. God rest his soul, but Henry feels nothing but exasperation right now. 

“I need to check a few facts. A few facts only she could know,” he says.

“We have her official statement right here.”

“I know. I read it.”

Sheriff Taylor scuffs his feet, suddenly terribly interested in the dirty floor of the station. 

Henry leans in, puts a hand on his arm. He learned about body language stuff in a public speaking course in college. He passed by three points, which was a roaring success in his book, looking back on his performance throughout the semester. “Sheriff. I’ve gotta do everything I can for Kovacs. Regardless of her guilt, I can’t let her death be on my conscience, knowing I didn’t do all in my power to legally prevent it.”

He shrugs in reply. “Don’t go breaking my heart here, Henry. Trust me, I know.” He pauses, considering. “Mrs. Hendrickson lives with her brother, right now. How about this: You go try to talk to her. If she don’t want you around, you scram. Alright? Sound fair?”

“More than fair,” Henry says. “Thank you, Sheriff. May I please have the address?”

-

Eliza Hendrickson peers warily at him from the doorway. “You work for Johnson?” she says.

“Most certainly not.” He gives a wide, amiable smile. “I’m Miss Kovacs’s lawyer, Henry Lansietter. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Hendrickson.”

She considers his hand as though it is a foreign object before looking back up at his face. “You mean the woman who murdered my husband.”

He doesn’t contest the point. Rather, he says, “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

She takes a deep breath, lets it out, glances behind her into the house, glares out at the road, raises her eyes to heaven, and says, “Sure. Why not.”

Henry follows her into the living room, closing the door behind him. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Hendrickson. If you don’t wish to answer any question or the nature of the subject makes you uncomfortable, don’t hesitate to tell me.”

She shrugs. 

“May I take a seat?”

“I suppose.”

He lights down on the couch, notepad on his knee. 

“Is there anything I can get you, Mr. Langsetter?”

“Lansietter.”

“Right.”

“No thank you, Mrs. Hendrickson.”

She sits down, finally, and he sees how her arms shake. His gut feels weird when he looks at her absent expression. He refuses to follow where that thought leads. “Alright,” she says.

He looks down. “Mrs. Hendrickson, I was wondering if you could recount your experience before your husband...passed.”

“Before he was murdered, you mean.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hendrickson.”

“Fine. There’s already a police record, but what do I care? You probably want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” She fiddles with the sleeves to her cardigan. “I’ll tell you. You want me to start on April first or second?”

“Any is fine, Mrs. Hendrickson.”

She takes a breath. “I’ve never been a stickler for a clean house, but on April first, I decided it was time to start spring cleaning. I spent about six hours, that day, I think, scrubbing every surface of the flat. 

“When I came out, Miss Kovacs was on her way out from the shop. ...We live behind the store, you know. That about...five-thirty. Well, I asked Ron about it and he shrugged it off. She comes around a lot. They always seemed to be arguing about something or other, from politics to colors. I didn’t think too much on it, never mind that Miss Kovacs looked fit to be tied. 

“Ron had to close up shop at about eight and I didn’t really notice anything different about him. He just said he had a nice chat with the Mayor--he’s good friends with the Mayor--and saw my brother. I didn’t really pry; I wasn’t too interested. It all seemed run of the mill to me.

“The next day, April second, I got up around six and I finished up some of my cleaning before coming out to check on Ron. That was about seven forty-five. He was talking to Miss Kovacs again. She was calmer, but there was something weird about her.” She pauses. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to speculate, Mr. Lansietter.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Hendrickson. Feel free to state your observations.”

“Well, she _was_ decidedly strange. There was something forced about her. But she got one look at me and she was on her way. I asked Ron about it, but he just shrugged me off, saying she wanted to hear the weather report for the day. He told me he had to get back to work minding the place, so I went out to lunch with a friend.”

“May I ask whom, Mrs. Hendrickson?”

“Polly Harrington,” she says. “That was about noon. We ate down at Hank’s. I don’t suppose what we had matters. We were there for about an hour and a half. I walked with her to the park and we talked some more and met with some other people out and about. Let me think; I saw Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Mumsy, Mrs. Turner, Miss Hiyashi, Miss Juniper... I’m not sure if it matters. The police have a comprehensive list, I believe.”

“Miss Hiyashi?” he asks before he can stop himself.

She looks at him dully. “Sally. Not the one you’re into.”

“I’m not ‘into’ anyone, Mrs. Hendrickson. Any comment to the contrary is malicious slander.”

“Most certainly. May I continue with my recount?”

“My apologies, Mrs. Hendrickson. Of course.”

She looks back down at her hands. “By about three, Polly went home and I went back home. Ron and I talked for a few minutes about the business and I told him I was going to stay at my brother’s for a little bit. We’re very close. So I went over to Howie’s at about three-thirty and we talked for a while. I ended up spending the night there. I was tired and rather inebriated and he was very insistent I stay. When I woke up the next day, Ron was dead.”

Henry nods. “Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Hendrickson. You’ve been very helpful.” He slips his notepad into his trouser pocket and stands. “I’ll be on my way now. I’ll try not to disturb you from now on.”

She shrugs, staring at the carpet. 

Good day, Mrs. Hendrickson.” He turns to the door, which is opening before he even approaches it.

“Christ, Henry, first Young Werther, now my _sister?”_ Deputy Warren cries. “Are you _trying_ to drive me insane?”

Henry can only stand there stupidly, mouth agape.

“Howie, you told me you’d be home later!” 

The Deputy looks between the two, his brow furrows. “What is he doing here?”

She stands up. “He came to ask me about the murder,” she says, voice wavering. “He hasn’t done nothing wrong, Howie.”

“You know there’s an official statement, don’t you?” he says to Henry.

Henry doesn’t say anything. 

The Deputy groans, covering his eyes. “Get out,” he says. 

“Howie!” Eliza cries.

“Now,” he says, low and strained. 

The door hits Henry on the way out.

-

“Nobody told me Ron Hendrickson’s brother-in-law was the Deputy,” Henry says, staring at the ceiling.

He hears Josiah shift closer. “Mmhm. He and Ron were fairly close.”

“How close?”

“Like brother-in-law close? I don’t understand what you mean, Henry.”

He closes his eyes. “I mean, was Deputy Warren ever...I don’t know, ambivalent?”

“How so?”

“He seems like a rather protective guy.”

“Well, his sister’s husband just died. How do you _think_ he feels about her safety?”

He rubs his face. “Understandable. But Werther? He’s the same damn way with Werther.”

“How about we talk about things that matter,” Josiah says. “How did her alibi hold up to Kovacs’s?”

“Times were a little off, but I’m not terribly surprised. Though by the way she was talking, Polly Harrington wasn’t home for very much of April second.”

“Hm.”

“Whatever,” he says. “She hasn’t got anything to do with it. I’m fairly confident.”

“So are the police.”

He sits up, regarding Josiah. “That’s right,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Why is the Deputy involved in this case?”

“Why wouldn’t he be? He’s one of the only policemen in town.” 

He hits the desk. “It’s a conflict of interest!”

Josiah stares at him, wincing. “Could you be a little more quiet?”

“Sorry.” He shakes out his hand. That actually really hurt. “But don’t you see? Deputy Warren shouldn’t be within a hundred paces of this case. Isn’t that fishy?”

“How?” he retorts, weary. “Look, Henry, you’ve told me yourself: We don’t need to know who did this or how. I don’t need you turning into a regular Perry Mason on me.”

“I will not allow an innocent woman go to her death,” he spits.

Josiah gives him a queer look. 

Henry folds into himself, on his desk, sulking. “Johnson,” he mutters.

“Is that what this is about, Henry? Beating Johnson?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t know. I... I just feel like I’ve got nothing, Josiah.”

“Henry,” he says, voice hushed, “you still need to keep the possibility in mind that Wanda might have killed Hendrickson.”

“No.”

“Henry--”

“It’s out of the question. She didn’t. She couldn’t have.”

“But she _could_ have,” he snaps. Henry quiets. “Regardless of whether or not she _did_ , she _could_ have. She owned the meat cleaver. She hated Hendrickson. She knew how late he worked.”

“Why was he in his shop at midnight, anyhow?” Henry mutters.

“Who knows? What does that have to do with Wanda Kovacs?”

“Think her pa can vouch for her at midnight?”

“He was probably sleeping; I doubt it.”

He broods, regarding the tabletop, for a solid two minutes. “I think I’m going to close up.”

“That sounds like a fine idea, Henry.”

“Yeah,” he says, blinking slowly and sitting up. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Josiah raises a brow. “Okay. I’ll be on my way, then. You can close up, right?”

“Yeah.”

With a hefty amount of backward glances, he takes his leave. Henry sinks down in his chair, deflating further. 

He shoots back up when at the close of the door, Mayor McDonnell appears, plastered to the wall, grinning sheepishly. “How long were you there?” he cries.

“A few minutes,” he says.

“Gosh, Mayor, you can’t just go around spooking people like that!”

“Sorry, Henry.”

He sighs. “Whatever. How can I help you, Mayor?”

Mayor McDonnell laughs. “Not much can help me, Henry. I’ve got a meeting on Sunday with two sticklers from the town board. Real important affair. You know how that can be, I’m sure.”

“Do I ever. But that has nothing to do with me. Why are you here?”

“Well, Henry, I notice you’ve been rattling the poor police station up, lately.”

He shrugs. “You’ve been talking to Sheriff Taylor and Deputy Warren, I presume?”

“Sort of, Henry.”

There’s really no ‘sort of’ about that. He either talked to them or he didn’t. Henry doesn’t say this, though. He has to play this right. “Your prosecutor’s threatening me.” ...Never mind. Bigmouth strikes again. 

“Pardon, Henry?”

“Mr. Johnson is very keen about my personal life, Mayor. We don’t even have a trial date yet; I think he’s getting a little overzealous.” 

The mayor fiddles with his cufflinks. “I’m real sorry about that, Henry. I’ll give him a stern talking to. I’ve just been very busy getting ready for my meeting. You know how that can be, I’m sure. Now, I understand you’ve been poking your nose around the Harringtons’?”

“What of it?”

“Nothing, Henry. I just find that odd, since they have very little to do with poor Mr. Hendrickson’s murder.”

“They have everything to do with my client, Mayor. I am concerned solely for my client.”

“Of course, Henry. You’re doing a very good job. I see you frequently chatting it up with Miss Hiyashi downtown.”

“She is my key character witness,” he says stiffly.

“Exactly my point, Henry. No one can say you’re not doing everything you can for Wanda.”

He’s going to bite a hole through his cheek at his rate. Mayor McDonnell grates on him, worries him, gives him vibes. So his teeth just gnaw and gnaw and he looks at the mayor.

“Henry?”

“What do you want to talk to me about, Mayor?”

“Excuse me, Henry?”

“Why are you here?” he says. “What do you want?”

“I just heard that you’ve been upsetting poor Mrs. Hendrickson. That simply won’t do, Henry. You’re a gentleman, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” he says, stung. “And I was perfectly cordial with her. I asked her if she’d like to repeat her statement for me and she acquiesced. I assure you, it was entirely consensual.”

“I don’t doubt that, Henry, but it’s hardly been two weeks since her husband was murdered.”

“Yes, that’s right. Strange how quickly the police knew who detain. How long’d that investigation take? Three days, I believe?”

“Well,” the mayor says with a simpering smile, “sometimes these things are clean cut, Henry. You know?”

“Yeah, I do.” He looks up the ceiling, eyes distant. “I certainly do, Mayor. But this one doesn’t make a damn lick of sense.”

“Pardon, Henry?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Secret. You’ll see at the trial, I suppose. Is there a judge for that, yet?”

The mayor takes a step forward, hands curled loose and open, voice sincere. “What’d you see that’s so confusing, Henry? I’d really like to know before Sunday.”

“You don’t reveal a hand at the poker table.”

“Henry.”

“Do we have a judge yet?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He stretches. “I’ve got to close up, Mayor. I suggest you go, unless you’d like to be a Peeping Thomas a little longer.”

Mayor McDonnell retreats without so much as a goodbye.

-

“But you don’t have any secret information,” Betty says, confused. “Do you?”

“It’s called a bluff,” he says. “I wanted to see what he’d do.”

“And?”

“He practically told me he was hiding something.”

“I doubt that.”

“With his body language, I mean.” He shrugs, fingering his tie. “Politicians--they’re all scumbags. They know how to control their body language, you know? And when they’re in trouble, they control it even better.”

“So what does this mean?”

“It means someone’s working against us. And I’m pretty sure I know who it is.”

“Johnson,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Henry, I don’t...”

“It’s the best idea I have, right now.”

She turns to him and he looks, taking his attention away from the gazebo in the park. “But who killed Mr. Hendrickson?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please tell me you at least have a defense for Wanda.”

“I’m working on it.”

He sees her jaw tense, the long line of her back arch under her sundress.

“I’m trying.”

“Trying isn’t good enough, sometimes.”

“I know,” he says.

She stares at him, intense. He can’t bear to return it. She’s studying him, the curve of his face, the slope of his shoulders, and it makes him sick with worry and revulsion. His body is none of her damn business. Women shouldn’t do that. Maybe men shouldn’t, either. He’s not sure. He feels faint. It’s a hot day out. It’s hard to breathe. The wife isn’t the killer and the Deputy is her brother and nobody knows who stole Kovacs’s knife. 

“I know,” he sighs.

 

 


	7. The Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty lends a fine hand when she decides it’d be best if she started taking a more active role in the investigation-that-is-not-an-investigation. There is someone who comes out of the woodwork and changes everything. ...Sort of. Wanda Kovacs does something stupid, but I didn’t need to tell you that.

    “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”  
  
    He stares down at Henry, shivering, as though Henry is much larger than he. Henry, for his part, can only gape. “How.”  
  
    “You wanted Young Werther,” Betty says, with a feline smile unfurling across her lips, “I got you Young Werther.”  
  
    “Oh God, Betty, the Deputy’s gonna kill me.” His throat is dry. He feels air scratch against the insides.  
  
    “String you up on a pole by the firehouse,” she corrects.  
  
    “Jesus.”  
  
    “But I was talking to Young Werther before, not you, Mr. Lansietter.”  
  
    “Henry.”  
  
    “Henry.”  
  
    “And Young Werther would like to speak to you.”  
  
    “Seriously, Betty, how’d you get him out of the house? God, this has to be illegal, somewhere in the country.”  
  
    “I didn’t. He came to me.” Betty isn’t the type to lie, but that sounds like a load of bullhonkey if he’s ever heard it. “And he told me he’d really love to see you.”  
  
    One look at Young Werther suggests the exact opposite, what with the poor boy palpitating so hard he practically shakes the floor itself. He’s not a boy, he’s a man, and Henry tries to tell himself this, but Werther has a face that just exudes a sort of youthful befuddlement. It doesn’t help that he looks like he just rolled out of bed.  
  
    “Hi, Werther,” Henry says amiably. “I’m Henry. Remember?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “You might want to speak a little slower, Henry,” Betty says.  
  
    He nods. “So, Werther, what’d you want to talk to me about?”  
  
    Mumbling.  
  
    “Did it have to do with your housekeeper, Miss Kovacs?”  
      
    He nods. He makes a sudden, strange grimace.  
  
    “Well, I’ve got to collect a lot of nice things to say about her, okay? Do you have any nice things to say about her?”  
  
    Shrug-nod. Maybe it’s not even that. It’s sort of like his neck spazzes to the side.  
      
    “Okay. You just tell me whenever you want to.”  
  
    But Werther says nothing. Henry gestures to the two chairs by the window. Betty takes a seat. Werther continues to stand. Two minutes pass. Henry knows because he watches the clock the whole time.  
  
    “Where’s Mr. Berlinski?” Betty asks.  
  
    “He’s out haranguing Sheriff Taylor for me to see if we can get a look at that meat cleaver.”  
  
    Another minute. Minutes pass very slowly when he starts to pay attention to them. It feels like ten. He wonders how many times he’s told someone something lasted ten minutes when it probably only took one. The idea haunts him, in a way. He’s a notorious exaggerator, but for some reason this concept knocks on his philosophical funnybone.  
  
    “Betty,” he says after six minutes of deep existential pondering, “I don’t think this is going to work. Does he even speak English right? A woman’s being charged for murder and I can’t sit around entertaining confused retards who--”  
  
    “I can understand you just fine,” Werther says irritably.  
  
    “Oh,” Henry replies.  
  
    He stares at the desk with a frustration in his eyes, jaw set.  
  
    “What’s on your mind, Werther?”  
  
    “Stop talking to me,” he snaps.  
  
    “Okay.”  
  
    Jesus, though, another minute and a half until finally, he says, “Okay.”  
      
    “Okay?”  
  
    “I’ll talk,” he announces as though this is a grand thing. From what Henry’s seen, it very well may be. “On a condition.”  
  
    “Sure.”  
  
    “Stop talking to me like I’m stupid.”  
  
    Henry sits back in his chair. “I’m sorry you were offended.”  
  
    “Of course I’m offended. You’re offensive.”  
  
    He’s starting to understand what a shrug-nod might be useful for, now.  
  
    Werther paces back and forth, a few feet forward, a few back, wrists against his chest, clearly agitated. Betty gives him a sidelong long. Henry doesn’t know what to do.  
  
    “Do you need anything, Werther?” Betty asks gently.  
  
    “No.”  
  
    “Oh. Okay.”  
  
    He stops before Henry’s desk. “Wanda Kovacs,” he says.  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “I’m talking about her.”  
  
    “Mmhm.”  
  
    “Polly says she’s a murderer.”  
  
    Henry sets his elbows onto his desk, coming forward. “Well, we’ll see how that turns out in court, won’t we?”  
  
    “She’s not,” Werther says.  
  
    “Pardon?”  
  
    “A murderer. I know she’s not.”  
      
    Well. That’s an interesting development. “You’re certain?” he says slowly.  
      
    “What did I just tell you? Stop talking at me like I’m a four-year-old.”  
  
    Henry wants to retort that he would if Werther didn’t act as temperamental as one and mumble half of what he said. He realizes this is not conducive to getting this story, however, since he is a smart and savvy young man. “Sorry; I’m just rather shocked.”  
  
    “I’m ninety percent positive.”  
  
    “Ninety?”  
  
    Werther gives him a withering look, like he’s a moron. “Of course. I don’t know if she ever murdered before; how could I? I just know she didn’t murder him.”  
  
    “Who’s ‘him,’ Werther?”  
  
    He pauses, staring past Henry’s head to the wall. “Hendrickson,” he whispers.  
  
    “Mr. Hendrickson? You say she didn’t murder Mr. Hendrickson, Werther?”  
  
    “Ron Hendrickson. Ron Hendrickson,” he says.  
  
    Henry gives him a long look, searching. “You’re not actually retarded, are you, Werther?”  
      
    Werther arches a brow, highly amused, still regarding the wall. He doesn’t say anything.  
      
    “Oh-kay. Well, Werther, how do I know your word is of any use?”  
  
    “Hm?”  
  
    “How can I trust you? What do you have to prove Miss Kovacs didn’t do it?”  
      
    Werther’s eyes crawl slowly to Henry, resting on his right ear. “Because I saw the murder,” he says.  
  
    “What?”  
  
    Betty lets out a sharp cry.  
  
    Henry shoots up, his chair skidding and squealing against the floor behind him. “Werther, you’ve gotta tell the police about this!”  
  
    Werther smiles at him. “No.”  
  
    He blinks. “I. I just, I... What?”  
  
    “No.”  
  
    “Why not? Oh, God, Werther--”  
  
    “I can’t.”  
  
    “Why not?”  
  
    He shrugs. “I can’t.”  
  
    Henry moves around his desk. Werther takes a quick step back. “Jesus Christ, Werther, this isn’t the time to kid around!”  
  
    “I can’t,” he says, voice shaky.  
  
    “Werther--”  
  
    “Don’t touch me!” he shrieks.  
  
    Henry stops.  
  
    “Please.”  
  
    He holds up his hands. “Okay. Okay.”  
  
    “Thank you.” Werther composes himself, swallowing. “I can’t tell police. So I’m telling you.”  
  
    “Why?”  
  
    “Because Miss Kovacs didn’t do it.”  
  
    “How do you know that?”  
  
    “Because I saw how it happened.”  
  
    “You better not be pulling my leg,” Henry says, “because I swear to all that is holy, Werther...”  
  
    “Oh, I don’t lie,” Werther says, eyes wide. “I don’t know how, Mr. Lansietter.”  
  
    “Okay. Fine. Do you know who did do it?”  
  
    “I can’t say.”  
  
    “Do you know?”  
  
    Weird nod-shrug again.  
  
    “Werther.”  
  
    He stares at his own hands, attention lost.  
  
    Betty gives Henry a pointed look.  
  
    He tries a different tactic. “How’d you get out of the attic, Werther?”  
  
    Werther shrugs. A discernible, understandable shrug, that is. “I left.”  
  
    “Well, obviously. How?”  
  
    “Polly’s out. I picked the lock.”  
  
    “You don’t mean to tell me they lock your door, Werther,” Betty says.  
  
    “Of course they do.” He gives her an odd look. “Why ever wouldn’t they?”  
  
    “Then how’d you get out to see the murder?”  
      
    He shrugs noncommittally, lips pulling down. Werther has more shrugs than most women have pairs of shoes.  
  
    “Why do they lock you up, Werther?”  
  
    He quickly becomes captivated by his shoes scuffing against the floor. “You tell me,” he mutters.  
  
    “So you saw--you legitimately, with your own two eyes, saw--Hendrickson get murdered,” Henry says.  
  
    “Mmhm.”  
  
    “Werther.”  
  
    He looks up. “I did. I saw it. I saw it all.”  
  
    “And Wanda didn’t do it.”  
  
    “Nope.”  
  
    “Did you tell your friend the Deputy about this?”  
      
    The look that crosses Werther’s face sends Henry’s brain into red alert.  
  
    “Werther.”  
  
    “No,” he says slowly.  
  
    “Werther, be honest.”  
  
    “I am!” He clasps his hand against his chest. “Mr. Lansietter, I didn’t tell him a thing about it. He... Golly, Mr. Lansietter, Howie’s why I was there to begin with.”  
  
    “He was why you were there?”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    Henry takes a step closer, arms up. “Werther, you gotta talk to me about this. I’ll tell the cops for you.”  
  
    “No, you can’t.”  
  
    “I can’t?”  
  
    “No one can,” he says desperately.  
  
    Henry purses his lips. “Alright,” he says. “But you’ve gotta be straight with us, Werther.”  
  
    He lets out a barking laugh, hysteria edging into his expression.  
  
    It jars Henry, for lack of a better word. “Werther?”  
  
    “Howie lets me out, some nights.”  
  
    “You mean Deputy Warren.”  
      
    “Mmhm.”  
  
    “Could you tell us what you saw, Werther?” Betty says.  
  
    He turns, looking between them. “Could... Could you two go to one side of the room? Just so, uh.”  
  
    “Sure, Werther,” Henry says as warmly as he can (which is about tepid at best), moving to seat himself beside Betty. “Now you take your time and tell us about April second.”  
  
    “What’s that?”  
  
    He holds up the pen and notebook for Werther’s wary eyes. “This is a notepad.”  
  
    “Oh.”  
  
    “I’m just going to keep your stuff straight in my own head, okay? I don’t want to confuse what you say or misquote you. Hate to give false impressions.”  
  
    “Sure.”  
  
    Werther just stands there, though, arms curled up before him, looking at them.  
  
    “The story, Werther?”  
  
    “Right. Um. How do I start?”  
  
    “At the beginning, preferably.”  
  
    He looks at the ceiling. “Well, 1932--”  
  
    “Not that early.”  
  
    “Sorry.”  
  
    “April second, Werther. If you please.”  
  
    He scrunches up his face. “When?”  
  
    Henry rolls his eyes. “How about just before you left home for the night?”  
  
    “Okay. Okay.” He mutters to himself under his breath for a few seconds before taking a steadying breath. “So I spent most of the day, um, working on model planes my sister lets me keep. I was working on a Fokker Dr.I triplane. It’s, uh, it’s the iconic model of the Red Baron, Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, of the German Empire, in the first World War? It’s a big deal for me, right now. I’m still debating if I want to do a de facto model or match it to the famous ideal. I mean, most of his victories were accumulated on an Albatross D.III biplane. I found it rather presumptuous and garish to color it white and scarlet but I was still--”  
  
    “Werther.”  
  
    “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m very sorry.”  
  
    “It’s fine. Just...skip the planes.”  
  
    “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Okay. Howie let me out at nine o’clock.”  
  
    “Why do you call him Howie?”  
  
    “He tells me to,” Werther says with no small amount of pride.  
  
    “Okay.”  
  
    “So Howie lets me out at nine at night, when Polly’s asleep, I-- He told me Polly was asleep, I don’t know if she was... But I went out with him and we got an ice cream at Pete’s and he got a strawberry shake and I got a chocolate cone, but... But that’s not important. He dropped me off at home when the moon was creeping near the west. We... We took a ride in his car before that and I liked it because the window was down and the wind whips.” Werther’s blushing like a schoolgirl, eyes bright, lips curling. It’s more than a little disturbing. Henry shifts in his chair uncomfortably. “It was fun. I like Howie. He’s fun.”  
  
    “But he dropped you off and...?”  
  
    “And I didn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to go inside and get in trouble, anyways. I’m a grown man; I should be able to do what I want.” His clipped tone relaxes when he forces his own shoulders down, closes his eyes. His brow smooths. “I went for a walk.”  
  
    “To where?”  
  
    “Anywhere. I went through the park, past the school, down Main Street. I stopped at Ron Hendrickson’s shop.” He frowns. “I looked inside.”  
  
    “Why did you look inside Mr. Hendrickson’s shop, Werther?”  
  
    “Do I have to tell you?” he says, weary. “Do I?”  
  
    Henry shifts. “Not if you don’t want to, Werther.”  
  
    “I don’t.” He pauses. “So I look inside. I look inside and I see... I see Ron Hendrickson, at his countertop. I see someone else inside, too, arguing. A man. I... Things get hairy. A fight breaks out, you know? I panic; I don’t know what to do. I just... I don’t know, I can’t help anybody, I can’t do anything, I mean, look at me.” He wraps his arms around his torso, fretting. “So I run. I panic and then I run and I get home so fast it feels like seconds, Mr. Lansietter. Then I go upstairs and none of it ever happened, alright?”  
  
    “So you didn’t tell anyone?”  
  
    “I can’t. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen ever.”  
  
    “Okay, okay,” Henry says, trying to give some semblance of soothing. It fails miserably. “Werther, that was a good thing you did, alright? It was brave.”  
  
    “No it wasn’t,” he says miserably. “Ron Hendrickson is dead.”  
  
    “Regardless,” Betty says, “you still watched and you told us about Wanda’s innocence. That’s brave, Werther.”  
  
    Henry leans forward, his chair creaking. “Did you see how Mr. Hendrickson was killed?” She gives him a sidelong glare.  
  
    “No,” he gasps. “Even if I did, Mr. Lansietter, please, it didn’t happen. You can’t tell anybody I saw. You can’t, please. I...” He swallows. “They’ll know I was breaking the rules.”  
  
    “We won’t tell anybody, Werther. Besides, if you’re that scared, we could put you under what’s called Witness Protection.”  
  
    “No thanks, I’ve got to get home right now.”  
  
    “Werther.”  
  
    He inches toward the door. “Home. Before Polly.”  
  
    “Werther, please take a seat. I’ve got a few more questions, if you--”  
  
    “Henry, you’re going to give the poor boy a heart attack!” Betty snaps. She turns to Werther. “Werther, what’s the worst that’ll happen if you don’t go home?”  
  
    His hands clench, unclench, unsure what to do at his sides. “I’ll have broken the rules. Ma will punish me.”  
  
    “Well, your ma’s not home right now,” Henry says.  
  
    “That’s right.” He stares at the ceiling in wonderment.  
  
    “You said it yourself, Werther: You’re a grown man. You can do what you want.”  
  
    “Well, I’d like to go home.”  
  
    “Do you really, Werther?”  
  
    “Mm... Yes.”  
  
    Henry rubs his face, exasperated. “Is there anything we can do to encourage you to stay with us?”  
  
-

  
    Henry stares forlornly at the inside of his thinning wallet. “When is Miss Kovacs going to pay me?”  
  
    “After the case, I suppose.” Betty smiles at him. It almost makes it worth it. Almost. Werther smiling wildly at him from the other side offsets any positives. “This was very nice of you, Henry.”  
  
    “Yeah.”  
  
    “Thank you, Mr. Lansietter!” Werther gushes. “I love ice cream. This is way more fun than sitting in the attic reading the Farmer’s Encyclopedia and making models.”  
  
    “Mm.”  
  
    “Howie’ll be missing me, I suppose, but he owes me anyhow, so he can’t get too sore, I reckon.”  
  
    “Why’s he owe you?” Henry asks, eyes sliding to regard Werther’s bedraggled head.  
  
    “Because I keep his secrets.”  
  
    “Really.”  
  
    “Mmhm. I can’t tell any.”  
  
    “Of course,” he says amicably. “That’s completely understandable.”  
  
    “You’re bribing me, aren’t you, Mr. Lansietter?”  
  
    He shrugs.  
  
    Werther shrugs right back. “I’ve never been worth bribing before. So thanks for that. I’m still not telling you anything else.”  
  
    “Was there a meat cleaver, Werther?”  
  
    He doesn’t move. Doesn’t shift an inch.  
  
    Betty puts a hand on Henry’s arm. “Don’t push him,” she murmurs.  
  
    “He’s not made of glass,” he hisses back.  
  
    “Henry.”  
  
    “Fine.” He turns back to Werther. “Werther, I’m sorry if that was a bit forward.”  
  
    “It was,” he says. “And I’m not saying because I didn’t see anything.”  
      
    Henry restrains a groan. “Right.”  
  
    “Howie takes me out here, every once in a while.”  
  
    “Yeah, you mentioned that. Was, uh, April second the last time?”  
  
    “Yeah.” Werther stares ahead, giving the impression of brooding. “Yeah.”  
  
    “Is there something up with Deputy Warren, Werther? Something you can’t tell us?”  
  
    “There are lots of things I can’t tell you about Howie.”  
  
    “I know,” he says. “But I-- Could you look at me, please, Werther? ...Thank you. If it has to do with this investigation, you have to know that you could be obstructing the justice system if you don’t overturn any information. Okay? And you could...you could get in a whole lot more trouble than what your ma has in store.”  
  
    “I could go to jail,” he clarifies.  
  
    “Yes.”  
  
    Werther doesn’t say anything. His eyes fall on Henry’s left hip. “Howie, I. The Deputy, he just. He didn’t have anything do with it.”  
  
    “The murder?”  
      
    “No.”  
  
    “Does that mean he has nothing to do with the murder or--”  
  
    “With the murder. He has nothing. He’s really wonderful, you know,” he says distractedly, tearing at the napkin in his hands. “Howie. He’s very good to me. He takes me out and he talks to me at least once a week. He listens to me. He’s nice, Howie.”  
  
    “I’m sure he is, Werther.”  
  
    Werther just hums in reply, eyes glazed, worrying his lip.  
  
    Henry’s never seen a more obvious lie in his life.  
  
-

  
    “But why, Henry?”Josiah says. “What’s caused the change? I haven’t seen you this confident about the case since...ever.”  
  
    “I’m positive the Deputy’s got something do with this.”  
  
    “Oh no, Howie’s really wonderful,” Werther protests.  
  
    Josiah glances at him disdainfully. “And why are we babysitting the Harrington boy?”  
  
    “Josiah, for the last time, it’s called Witness Protection,” Henry snaps. “And he’s exactly why I’m confident.”  
  
    “Witness Protection is the police’s job, Henry. Hand him over to the police, and-- And why is he under Witness Protection?”  
  
    Henry leans in close to him. “He saw the murder.”  
  
    “What?”  
  
    “I told you not to tell anybody!” Werther cries.  
  
    “Did he see who killed him?”  
  
    “No,” Henry says.  
  
    Josiah furrows his brow, considering. “Then how would he know if it was Kovacs or not?”  
  
    “He knew it was a man.”  
  
    “Is he really certain of that?”  
  
    Henry shrugs, watching Werther knock the back of his head against the wall absently.  
  
    “This still doesn’t explain how someone stole Wanda Kovacs’s knife, Henry.”  
  
    “I know.”  
  
    “Not to mention we’re going off the word of a retard versus the word of the prosecution. This doesn’t look as promising as you think.”  
  
    “Werther’s not stupid, Josiah. And he’s the best we’ve got.”  
  
    “That’s not a pleasant thought.”  
  
    “Josiah. He saw the murder.”  
  
    “Then why isn’t he at the police station?” he shoots back.  
  
    Henry reels away, at a loss. “I. He said he can’t. I don’t know what that means.”  
  
    “What? Is he scared for his life? Did you tell him what Witness Protection means? Henry, please tell me you didn’t lie to the poor sap--”  
  
    “I can’t tell Howie! Howie can’t know I told you!”  
  
    Henry straightens his posture. “I thought you said Deputy Warren didn’t know.”  
  
    “He doesn’t. He doesn’t, but he also can’t know I went to you.”  
  
    “He doesn’t trust me, does he?” he says, lips curling with ironic humor.  
  
    “No.”  
  
    Josiah gives Henry a pointed look. “This is illegal.”  
  
    He shrugs.  
  
    “Henry, you’re better than this. Turn him in to the police. Now.”  
  
    “I can’t!” Werther wails. “I can’t go to the police!”  
  
    “Why the hell not?”  
  
    He stares at them both with wide eyes, stricken. He says nothing, gnawing on the corner of his mouth. He looks half his age when he does that and whatever Henry has of paternal instincts is moved by the helpless display. “Kiddo,” he says, “Kiddo, Josiah’s right. We can’t keep you here without telling the police. It simply isn’t right. Now I’m sure Deputy Warren won’t be too sore at you; you’re helping his investigation. That’s a very friendly thing to do. Wouldn’t you say so, Josiah?”  
  
    “Definitely.”  
  
    Werther hunches his shoulders and stares at the floor with a set expression. “Mr. Lansietter, I’m afraid for my safety.”  
  
    “No doubt. The police can protect you.”  
  
    “You can’t tell my folks, Mr. Lansietter.”  
      
    “I won’t, Werther.”  
  
    “Howie will.”  
  
    “I’m sure if you tell him how bad you don’t want your folks to know, he’ll be good about it,” Henry says soothingly. “You ready to go?”  
  
    Werther shrugs, still staring at the floor.  
  
    A loud bang resonates through the room.  
  
    “Henry!”  
  
    The door is flung open and Sheriff Taylor stands there, chest heaving. He glances around, nodding. “Mr. Berlinski. Werther.” He pauses. Does a double check. “Wait, Werther, what are you doing out?”  
  
    Werther sinks miserably in his chair, slapping a hand over his face.  
  
    “You wanted to speak to me, Sheriff?” Henry says.  
      
    The Sheriff turns his attention back to him, serious. “We’ve got a major problem, Henry.”  
  
    “What?” he says, crossing his arms. Just what he needs right now. Another complication in a series of complications.  
  
    “Wanda Kovacs has escaped.”  
  
  



	8. Wichita

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wanda Kovacs is on the lam, only not really, Stanley Johnson is incredibly skeptical of Henry’s qualifications, a court date is announced, and everything is just terribly ridiculous. Thank goodness the side plots of this are terribly short-lived, for the most part.

He sits down on the top of his desk, gaping. “But... But _why?”_

“How should I know? Deputy Warren left for coffee and cigarettes and I had to answer a call and when I came back, she was gone from the holding cell.”

“Why would she run off? It doesn’t... I don’t...” 

“Because she killed a guy,” Josiah mutters. Doubting Josiah, always doubting, always casting the first Goddamn stone. Henry really hates that about him, he supposes. Hates it with a sick sort of anger that is durable and borne from experience.

“Shut up!” Henry shouts. _“Shut up!_ She didn’t kill anybody and if you say another damn thing about it, I’m firing you!”

Josiah hunkers down in his chair, eyes wide. 

Running a quivering hand through his hair, Henry takes a few deep breaths and returns his attention to Sheriff Taylor. “When?”

“About noon.”

He spits an ungentlemanly curse at the floor. “Alright,” he says, looking up. “Alright. Okay. Fine. Alright. I’ll... Uh, I’ll just.”

“Henry,” Sheriff Taylor says with this pitying look on his face. Henry hates him for it. 

“Don’t.” He regards Young Werther. “And you. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

“Where’re you going, Henry?”

“I’ve got to make some calls. I’ll be back by four.” He shoves past and escapes out the door. He just needs some fresh air.

-

The fresh air doesn’t help. He kicks at a fire hydrant and bruises his foot something awful. People on the street stare at him. The sun beats down, makes him sweat bullets real fierce, and he flushes out of heat and embarrassment. He feels his clothes stick to him. He needs to change. He wants to rip off his jacket and throw it in the nearest gutter. He wants to strangle Wanda Kovacs’s stupid hick neck. 

Defeated, he limps home. He just needs to sit down for a few seconds, a moment or two, in the dark. 

When he opens his door, however, what he finds is far from relaxing. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” he cries.

Wanda shushes him from behind his bed, squeezed between the frame and the wall.

Henry quickly closes the door behind him. “What the hell are you _doing_ here?” he whispers.

She shimmies out and sits on his sheets. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says.

“Oh, really?”

“And it’s really not what it seems.”

He leans against the wall, lips curling into an angry sneer. “Really? Because it seems like a murder suspect has just broken herself out of jail, afraid that she’s going to lose at a fair trial and get the rope. But do tell.”

“But it’s not a fair trial.”

He searches her face in the dark for some give. She’s stonily serious. “Explain.”

“First of all, the Deputy’s got something to do with Hendrickson’s wife.”

“He’s her brother.”

“And the _mayor’s_ got something to do with Hendrickson’s wife.”

“When’d you figure this out?”

“About two months ago.”

He lets the back of his head connect with the wood of the door, groaning. The sound of said union suggests the contact was harder than he intended. He’s too exasperated and frustrated and _whacked out_ to care.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. At least you told me now.” He releases a sigh, shifts. He really wanted to take his clothes off and change when he got home. And maybe go to bed. Waking up would have been optional. 

“And somebody’s trying to kill me.”

_“What?”_

“Look for yourself!” She reaches down her blouse (Henry tastefully averts his eyes, of course) and procures a folded up and likely odorous scrap of paper.

He snatches it from her outstretched hand and opens it. 

 

**Miss Kovacs,**

**It has come to my attention that you are seeking professional representation in court. The good people of Tillery cannot condone a murderess seeking asylum after such a wretched crime. Ron Hendrickson, the man who you so viciously robbed of his life, will not have died in vain. Desist or you and your lawyer will face dire consequences.**

**-X**

 

He raises a brow, gnawing on his tongue in thought. How quaint. “Alright.” He’s rather skeptical Wanda Kovacs even knows what “dire,” “asylum,” and “desist” mean, but he’s composed enough at the moment to humor her.

“You see what I mean?”

“I’d hardly call this an attempt on your life, Miss Kovacs.”

“Do you know who wrote it? I can’t recognize the handwriting.”

He mulls over the content for a few more seconds, ignoring her impatient arm gesticulations. “Me neither. But the lingo reminds me of Stanley Johnson.” 

“Who?”

“The prosecuting attorney who’s trying to get you sentenced to death.”

“Ah ha!” she cries. “See? It _is_ a death threat.”

“How did you come into possession of this letter, Miss Kovacs?”

“It came with my meal.”

He hums. “Alright. Wait outside and I’ll walk you to see Sheriff Taylor.”

“Outside? I ain’t standing out there alone! People think I’m a murderer!”

“I meant outside my room. Mrs. Robinson is hardly in any condition to start stoning you. I have to change my shirt.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “Well, that ain’t nothing. I can just stay here, right?”

“I sweated right through it, Miss Kovacs.” When she doesn’t move, he opens the door and nods his head. “Out.”

She slides past him and out the door, hugging her arms to herself. “If I die, it’ll be your fault, Lansietter.”

“It’ll take me two minutes, Miss Kovacs.” He watches her turn away and scuff her foot on the ground, trying to make some sort of point, he supposes. Like he cares at all what a broad like Kovacs thinks of him.

He closes the door and rests his face against it. None of this is making any sense to him. He fingers his tie absently before standing up proper and pushing his hair back. Pomade doesn’t hold well when he’s sweated enough to practically submerge himself in his own fluids.

Infinitely disgusting. If Kovacs thought she was going to get a look at a hotshot, she would’ve had an unpleasant surprise. 

-

“How’d you get out, anyways?” he asks, his hand on the doorknob to the police station. 

She shrugs. “The cell was open. I dunno.” That’s certainly suspicious. Ridiculously suspicious. Who would allow that kind of oversight? ...Unless someone _wanted_ Kovacs to escape. This is not stretch, he supposes. Escaping does not look good for either of them, even if it _was_ only for a few hours.

Entering, he’s met with the lovely aria of, _“Lansietter, you can’t listen to a damn thing!”_

Spoiler: It’s the Deputy. Yep. Mmhm. Just what he needs right now. 

Werther’s crying hysterically behind him, which is just plain unseemly, plugging his ears. “It isn’t his fault, Howie! Howie, he didn’t do nothing wrong!”

Yanking Kovacs into the room because if he’s suffering she’s damn well going to suffer with him, he says evenly, “I found your murder suspect.”

Sheriff Taylor, eager to push past Deputy Warren and Werther’s conflicting angst, speaks above them, “Thank you, Henry!”

_“You remember my threat, Henry? You remember what I said I was gonna do? I’m gonna kill you!”_

Wanda delicately arches a brow. She’s intelligent enough to see the irony in Warren’s statement, Henry has to give her that. “Right. Sheriff, I’m sorry I ran off, but I got this horrid note with my meal and I panicked.”

“Note?”

She pulls it out of the top of her dress again ( _seriously,_ Kovacs?) and hands it to him. “See for yourself. You see what I put up with? Nothing’s safe!”

Henry rubs his face, trying to block out the Deputy’s stomping and Kovacs’s whining and Werther’s sobbing. He fails. “Who gave Wanda her lunch?”

“I did,” the Deputy says stiffly.

“Who gave you the note to give her?”

“What note?”

Henry turns to him, unimpressed. “The note you gave her with her meal. Unless you’re trying to tell me it just fell from the ceiling without your knowledge.”

Sheriff Taylor and Wanda are looking at Deputy Warren now. “How _did_ that get there, Warren?”

He shifts on his heels for a moment, pensive. “Prosecutor Johnson told me to give it to her.”

Henry is a genius, it is official. No matter how obvious it already was before, he is now the smartest man in the room. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” the Sheriff asks.

“I don’t know. I guess I forgot.”

“It’s all my fault,” Werther whimpers. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

The Deputy shushes him aggressively. 

“What’s his deal?” Henry says. 

“He’s been like that since your assistant and the Sheriff dragged him in.” The Deputy sneers at him. “He’s a delicate kid, though I don’t suppose that matters to you.”

Werther’s a definite kook. There’s no room for contention there. “You tell them what you saw, Werther?”

“See what I mean? You don’t care.”

“No,” Werther says. “Not yet.”

“Tell us what?” the Sheriff asks.

“About the murder,” Henry says evenly. Wanda looks at him eagerly, arching a brow. He tries to ignore this. 

“What could Werther possibly know about the murder?” Deputy Warren snaps.

“I don’t know; why don’t you ask him yourself?”

When all eyes turn to Werther, he freezes and stares at the opposing wall.

“Werther,” Henry says.

He’s silent for a few seconds. “What?”

“You gonna tell?”

He shrugs, eyes traveling across the floor. “I saw it.”

The Deputy closes in on him and he cringes away, like a kicked dog. “You saw _what?”_

“Howie, I...”

“He saw the murder,” Henry clarifies.

“Bullshit!”

“It’s true!” Werther says. “It’s true, Howie, I... It’s true, but don’t tell Polly, oh Mother Mary, don’t tell Polly, _please_ don’t tell Polly, don’t tell Polly...”

“Is there a problem, Deputy?”

He clenches his jaw, brows pinching together. He says nothing. Henry’s not sure if he likes that expression on him. 

“Sheriff,” he says, “you might want to put Miss Kovacs under some protection.”

“That’s what we were doing _before_.”

“Perhaps I should rephrase that, then: Don’t leave her unaccompanied.” He pulls at a loose thread in his jacket. “Clearly someone--and I’m not saying Mr. Johnson necessarily--aims to intimidate my client. This should be the safest place for her and if it isn’t, I’m afraid I’ll have to find issue with you in court.”

The Sheriff nods his head anxiously. “Of course, Henry. Definitely. I can’t believe this happened.” He takes Wanda by the elbow. “If you’ll follow me, Miss Kovacs.”

She rolls her eyes and turns her head to regard Henry. “Lansietter.”

“What?”

“I want you back here tomorrow. I ain’t paying you to sit on your ass, letting people send me threatening mail.”

“Of course, Miss Kovacs,” he says dutifully, placing his arms behind him. He watches Sheriff Taylor escort her away, worrying his tongue between his teeth, thinking. Making her look good in court is going to be a struggle. Her...escape is easy fodder for Johnson and of course, her crass mannerisms and her unsightliness will buy her no favors from a jury or judge. 

“It’s all my fault,” Werther says.

“No, it’s not,” the Deputy retorts. 

“I shouldn’t have been, I’m sorry, but you gotta not tell Polly, please, don’t.”

Henry makes his way for the door. “You give the police an account, alright, Werther? I’m at my office if you ever need me.”

“He won’t,” the Deputy says.

He arches a brow before stepping out of the building. “I think he can decide that for himself.” 

-

“I hear your client broke out of jail.”

Henry doesn’t deign him with a reaction. 

Johnson continues. “That certainly won’t look good, Thursday.”

“Thursday?”

“Of course. The Thursday after next. That’s the trial date.”

He snorts. “That’s quick.”

“It’s a very black-and-white affair, Mr. Lansing. I was just speaking with the mayor, who has a private meeting in a day to further discuss this...matter.”

He lifts his eyes, tries not to bite his cheek or twitch his fingers or do anything. His neck feels hypersensitive. Flippin’ Mayor McDonnell. Of course he’d want this over with. Of course it’s him. Of course he’s having a meeting in one day, a _private_ meeting with a select member of the town board. (Is that even legal? Henry doesn’t think so.) He feels sick, right now, though, and thinking about legality makes him cringe. Kovacs is not the murderer. “Mr. Johnson, I understand my last name may come across as obtuse to some, but I would like to inform you that it is Lansietter.”

“That’s interesting; my sources tell me otherwise.”

He cracks his back and feels a note of triumph when he sees Johnson’s lips turn downward. “I suggest you put more effort toward your case and less toward trying to disenfranchise me with nonsense.”

“Kovacs is a textbook case,” Johnson says. “You...are not.”

“As flattered as I am that I garner so much interest from you, your intensity is rather discomfiting, Mr. Johnson. I should hope it’s only interest and nothing more.” His heart hammers in his throat. He relaxes his muscles, lolls his head on the back of his jaw. Control. Hide it. Hide everything.

“Don’t be vile. There is something about you, Mr. Lansing, that _concerns_ me.”

“Lansietter,” he drawls.

“I wonder what would cause a young, intelligent man such as yourself to change your name.”

“I’ve been a Henry Lansietter as long as I’ve been on this Earth, Mr. Johnson. If you’re trying to out me as a criminal, you’ll have no luck.” He knots his hands together and puts them behind his head. 

“You told me you were born in...?”

“Louisville, Kentucky,” he says.

“Funny.”

“Hardly. It’s a very boring place, I can assure you of that. What else do you need to know? My house? It was white. It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one kitchen, a living room, and a porch. It was a nice place.” He stares at the ceiling. It really wasn’t, but he’s not about to allow someone like Johnson to sneer at his upbringing. His momma did the best she could, even if she was a piece of trash. He thinks of empty rooms, white rooms, everything white and empty. 

“Does Wichita ring any bells?”

He scrunches up his face. “What?” he asks, aghast. He doesn’t even know _where_ Wichita is. Kansas? Iowa? Probably Kansas. Maybe?

Johnson smirks triumphantly. “Henry Lansing, born in 1927. Wichita, Kansas.”

He barely restrains a laugh, which comes out more as a strange release of air out of his teeth and nose, body coming forward and curling around his middle. “Oh sweet heavens, Johnson, wow.”

“Now what did you do that made you so desperate for a name change, Mr. Lansing?”

“Oh _boy._ Mr. _Johnson_. Oh.”

“Larceny?”

“Oh, Mr. Johnson, you are just _too much_ ,” he says, rubbing at his face, grinning. 

“What?” Johnson snaps irritably. “I’ll have you removed from this case faster than you can procure your half-baked alibi. You will be _disbarred_ , Lansing.”

“Give me a second.” He slaps his knee, shaking his head and trying to quell the chuckles threatening to burst out of his mouth. When he looks up, he still can’t keep a straight face. “Alright. Alright, I’m fine. Now, Mr. Johnson, I suggest you concern yourself with matters other than fabricating ridiculous backstories for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr. Johnson,” he says, “I was born in Louisville. I _have my birth certificate_ on record. Do you want to see it? I could get it for you if you give me half an hour to get home and back.”

“Forgery,” he dismisses.

“Au contraire. Do you want the number of the doctor who delivered me? How about an official statement from my own mother?”

“Mothers lie.”

“Do doctors?”

“If you pay them enough.”

Henry pointedly looks around his office. “Mr. Johnson,” he says, “do I look like I have the money?”

Face pinched and lips pursed, Johnson says, “Court case, Thursday. Ten AM,” and turns and walks out.

Henry grins stupidly for a few minutes before he remembers that that’s little more than a week away and then he feels like he has to throw up. 

-

And if his first last name _was_ Lansing, what of it? These things do change, you know. He was going to have to change his name eventually, one way or the other. There were two options for Henry, when he got to that point in his life: Robert Brown and his own future. 

It actually wasn’t as easy a decision as he feels it is now. Things were uncertain then. He didn’t know about school, he didn’t know about a job, he didn’t know about papers. He hadn’t the slightest clue how to move forward with his life. All he knew about was book clubs. 

When he went to college at nineteen, he was miserable as all hell for the first two years. It was a terrible experience. He didn’t know what was safe or reasonable or if he could handle it. Robert Brown told him he couldn’t. College was a thing for men like Robert Brown, after all, not for Henry Lansing. Robert Brown would always go on about it, he’d say that college was for _men_ men, who had the neurology that could handle the complex issues of their modern day. 

“Well, _I’m_ a man,” he had snapped when he was eighteen and desperate and knew his name change was coming soon. “I’m a man and I’m _more_ of a man than you’ll ever be.”

But Robert Brown just looked at him, just stared and stared, expression slowly morphing from amused to horrified. “You’re not joking,” he said, incredulous. 

“Why the _hell_ would I be joking?”

Robert Brown pulled his jaw back up. “Oh God,” he said. “Oh God, they’re gonna have to lock you up if you keep saying whacko stuff like that.”

Henry shook his head at that idiotic statement, frustrated. So damn frustrated. “If anyone here’s crazy, it’s you,” he said. “I know who I am, what I want, where I’m going. What about you, Robert? What the hell are you gonna do? You gonna sit on your ass, inherit your daddy’s banking firm, or what?” Henry stepped up to him, quivering in anger. “You gonna lean back while the rest of us honest folk break our backs? Sipping your fancy little--”

Robert Brown smacked him. 

It was more like a loose punch than a smack and it whipped him right upside the head, like an overly violent cuff. It hurt. It hurt real bad. Robert Brown was muscle all over. Henry was a twig, small and slight, delicate and light-boned. (He still is, but he’s tried bulking up before. Nothing really works. It’s rather frustrating, but hey. We can’t all be hunks.) He doubled over for a few seconds, clutching his face, skin reddening with pain and embarrassment. 

When he looked back up, Robert Brown stared back at him, stricken. He was holding the hand that hit Henry to his chest. “Oh, oh God,” he spluttered. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. Oh God.”

“Shut up,” he said and he could feel his throat tightening up. He didn’t want to cry. Men don’t cry. Men never cry. But God, this was embarrassing, this was humiliating, demeaning, and just plain awful. “Just shut up.”

Robert Brown leaned down to touch him, gentle him. “Come on, you know I didn’t mean any harm, baby.”

“Don’t touch me,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare touch me.”

Robert Brown rubbed his back. Henry sulked in reply. He hated Robert Brown. “Baby, please.”

“I hate you, Robert Brown.”

Robert Brown didn’t reply to that. He also didn’t stop touching Henry. Henry hated the slide of his hand; he hated the hands of men. They’re big and sweaty. There’s no delicacy to most men, no sweet vulnerability when it matters. Henry was never going to be like that to a girl. He’d treat her right. He’d open up when she opened up. He swore it. He’d go to school, he’d make his way in the world, he’d provide for a girl. 

It’s conflicting for Henry, but Robert Brown may have been one of the most important people in his life with his casual cruelty, his self-assured assumptions. Johnson reminds him of Brown. He’s used to having things handed to him, he’s used to being forgiven for his indiscretions, he’s used to privilege. It makes Henry’s jaw clench and his throat constrict with anger. He’s not sure if it’s their attitude about their easy life--their sheer _complacency--_ or the fact that he doesn’t have any of their stepping stones that makes him hate them. 

Maybe it’s both. 

He has a little more than a week to prove Wanda Kovacs’s innocence before he has to do it for twelve strangers. He’ll be up against Stanley Johnson, who’s so anxious about his presence in the courtroom that he’s trying to get him discharged from the case with a fake criminal record. Why the hell is Johnson so intent on that, anyways?

Just like Robert Brown, he decides, glaring at the cracked ceiling of his room. There’s no other word for it that he can think of other than “bully.” He’s just a natural bully. It’s how he operates, how he empowers himself. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t try to rise above a crowd but instead crushes everyone around him so he only appears higher. 

He’s dangerous, Henry knows. And it’s unlikely Johnson _won’t_ have something up his sleeve, come next Thursday.

 


	9. Responsible Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is Sunday! Guess what that means? If you said spying on the Mayor’s overly conspicuous town hall meeting that doesn’t involve Town Hall, then you’re right! Henry, as usual, is the king of unnecessary and foolish measures to procure minimal information for his client. He’s successful! ...Sort of.

 

“What do you mean, he’s not taking the stand?”

“He issued a statement saying he wasn’t comfortable undergoing questioning in court,” Josiah says, flipping through the new paperback Henry tossed on his desk this morning. He raises a brow. “I didn’t know you were into Perry Mason.”

“ _He_ issued the statement? Or do you mean the Deputy?”

“Deputy Warren, obviously.” He looks up, trying to catch Henry’s eye. “Henry,” he says, “Young Werther’s not _fit_ to question. You know that. Even if he isn’t retarded, he’s volatile.”

“Do you have that meat cleaver, yet, by the way?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I find it to be a perfectly legitimate question pertaining to the case. Also, I’m your boss.”

Josiah gives a deep sigh. “Alright. And no, I didn’t.”

“Try harder.”

“I didn’t say that I quit,” he snaps.

Henry leans back in his chair, feels the back catch at the small hairs at the nape of his neck when he reclines his head. He wants a cigarette. “You want to. You hate this case. If you hate working with me so much, quit.”

“Henry, what is your _problem?”_

“What do you mean?”

He shoves Henry’s chair legs back to the ground, standing behind him. “I mean,” he says, “that you’re being a huge nutcase. If you want me to go, I’ll go, but you’re not like this. You’re better than this.”

He sets his elbows down on the desk. “This is very stressful,” he admits.

“Of course it is. It _is_ a murder trial. I’d expect you know the stakes of a _murder_ trial.”

“I can’t let this woman die, Josiah. She’s a dirty, ill-bred fool if I’ve ever seen one, but I’ll be damned if I let shady dealers like Johnson and McDonnell tie the rope for her.” 

“Why does there have to be some great conspiracy?”

“Well, let’s think,” Henry says. “I’ve gotten four threats since this thing’s started again. Our prosecutor seems rather dogged on taking me off the case; our town official seems ridiculously suspicious with ambiguous motivations; our law enforcement seems desperate to deny any witnesses with testimony to the contrary of their claim; and to top it all off, the town seems to think I’m into shady business ranging from having a criminal alias to stepping out with an Oriental woman.”

That’s a whole lot of things that _seem._ Henry doesn’t believe in coincidences. He hates them and he ignores things that he hates. This is one of those rare cases where he has to connect the dots and he hates that too, but it won’t go away no matter what he does. He feels trapped. At the end of his rope. There’s frustration in this situation and hopelessness. Mostly he just feels cheated, though. And that makes him angry. 

“I just don’t understand why this can’t all be done in a neat, legal, simple process,” he says, tugging at the cuffs of his sleeves in agitation. 

Josiah leans onto the back of the chair, looming over him with a pondering expression. “Because no one else is being neat or legal or simple. That makes it very hard to play fair.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he says stiffly. 

“And?”

“And maybe I should change my strategy?”

“Mmhm?”

Henry twists his torso to look up at him. “I’m not breaking the law.”

“I didn’t say you should.”

“You’re _insinuating_ it.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

He stares forward, pensive. “You know,” he says, “I’m honestly starting to think there really is some sort of conspiracy against me at work.”

“Of course,” Josiah says, bobbing his head amicably. 

“It’s Sunday.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Mayor McDonnell’s been talking about something on Sunday.”

“That he has.”

“I mean, he’s mentioned _to me, specifically._ It’s no secret.”

“Doesn’t seem to be.”

“There’s a closed town meeting today. Town meetings shouldn’t be closed.”

“That’s true.”

“The mayor’s only meeting with two people on the town board. That’s not procedure.”

“Correct.”

“Town meetings are public affairs.”

“Yup.”

“Anyone should be allowed to listen in.”

“You got it.”

Henry licks his lips. “I am an idiot.”

“Sure thing.”

He pushes away from his desk, winding Josiah in the process, the chair connecting solidly with his gut. “I’m going to call some witnesses. To this, I mean. Not the...Kovacs or... Whatever. I’m going. Out. Coming?”

Pressed against the wall, he croaks, “You bet,” as Henry plucks his hat off the coatrack and slips out the door.

-

“This sounds at best impulsive and at worst highly illegal.”

He shrugs. “It’s my idea.”

“I gathered,” she says, leaning against her porch. 

“Betty,” he says.

“What makes you think Mayor McDonnell has anything to do with this?”

He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “There’s a lot of suspicious activity going on in this town. I’m trying every avenue.”

“This isn’t a movie, Henry.” But he sees the way her mouth twists in a good way. It warms his stomach, like after a good meal.

“What’s life without a little adventure?”

She idly plays with a strand of her hair. “Safe?”

“Safe is overrated. And dangerous for your friend.”

“You’re no Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Lansietter.”

He ducks his head. “I don’t plan on becoming one, Miss Hiyashi.”

“That’s good. You’re fine on your own.” She picks at her dress. 

He stares at her hands. They’re good hands. They’re small and pale and delicate. 

“Alright,” she says. “Alright.”

“Thank you.” 

“I’m not doing it for you,” she says lightly. “I’m doing it for Wanda.”

“Of course. Of course.” He nods. He grins until his skin aches. “Of course.”

-

The Mayor is a mouth breather, Henry finds. He sucks in air like a Hoover. The break room of Town Hall seems to permeate with gusts of air escaping from his lips. It’s as though he’s encased in an iron lung. “What’s really strange,” Betty says in a hushed tone, “is how _loud_ it really must be, if we can hear it from one room over.”

“Or the walls are just very thin,” Josiah says, “which means we should be very quiet.”

“Shut up,” Henry mutters, less out of irritation and more out of habit.

“But what are you hoping to achieve here, Henry?” Betty asks. “Forgive me if I seem a little slow, but I don’t understand what Mayor McDonnell’s meeting with some members of town council has to do with the murder.”

“It might have nothing,” he says. “But here’s a series of facts: Fact one: This meeting concerns the trial conditions. Fact two: Mayor McDonnell is keenly interested in my involvement. Fact three: Mayor McDonnell was _friends_ with Hendrickson, at least according to Mrs. Hendrickson. Fact four: I’ve run out of ideas.”

Fact five: He’s an idiot. Fact six: The mayor is a total jerk. A raving Irishman, if you will. That’s not surprising. Possible murderer? Hm. Pursue that angle later. Fact seven: He’s talking now, so Henry’s head better shut up.

“--What I don’t understand, Mr. Cook, is the need for a proposed tax increase, what with the latest state funding.”

“Well, gosh, McDonnell, it’s all about infrastructure. Schools need funding. And besides, you know how much the death penalty costs? Exorbitant, really.”

Henry leans in close to the wall, holding his breath. 

“I don’t want this any more than anyone else does,” McDonnell says, distressed. Or, he sounds distressed, at least. “It’s the damn election that’s doing it.”

“Make a choice. You’re either for it or against it; there’s no middle ground.”

There’s a long pause. So long, in fact, that Henry begins to doubt there’s anyone in the room anymore. He feels a sense of unease prickle at the top of his skin. 

Josiah leans in. “What--”

“Sh!” he hisses. Presses his ear to the wall. Scrunches his eyes shut. Twists his mouth. Concentrates. 

Yeah. There’s silence, over there. 

Wait. No.

Pens scratching. 

He moves away. Before either of his partners in this totally legal procedure can say anything, he shrugs emphatically. They can’t see a damn thing happening in the room over. They’re in the file room behind the secretary--Mrs. Sommerfeld’s--office. There are, naturally, numerous cabinets filled with files. There is also a dusty desk with an equally dusty chair, a rather sordid window overlooking a used car lot, and an air duct. Granted, the air duct is a good two feet above Henry, but he finds an ill-conceived idea forming in his head. 

“I’m going,” he whispers, “to crawl through the air duct.”

“What?” Josiah spits. 

“Don’t question it,” he says, removing his jacket and draping it over the chair. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to see what they’re up to.”

“I doubt that thing will hold you.”

“I’m a lightweight.”

“Are you even small enough to fit into it?”

“I have narrow shoulders.”

“How are you going to get into it?” Betty asks.

“You two are going to lift me up.”

“Absolutely not!” Josiah cries.

“Shut up.”

He shuts up, jaw set and face fuming. 

Henry moves toward the wall and runs his hands over it, testing for...something. Grip, his mind supplies. The stupidly apish side of him is searching for a grip. He kicks off his shoes. 

“How’re you going to disconnect the metal gridding?”

“Do you even know that this connects to McDonnell’s room?”

“Shhhh,” he says. 

“Are you seriously taking off your pants? Henry!”

“Shhhh,” he hisses. “Now give me a lift.”

After some initial grumbling and a few mortified sighs of Betty for good measure, they each grasp an ankle and haul him up. “You _are_ light,” Josiah notes. 

“Just like my conscience.”

“But of course.”

The metal plate is hanging by two loose screws. It’s no trouble to remove it. A miniature Deux ex Machina, if you will. He sends the plate down to Betty, who unceremoniously lets it drop from her fingers to the floor. 

The clatter causes them to freeze. Henry doesn’t dare breathe. He simply listens. He listens through the duct for something, anything. When the pen starts back up, he shoots her a look of reproach and then hoists himself into the space.

It’s cramped, for one. His elbows are firmly planted beneath his ribs. His ribs, for one, are in severe pain from the horrible awkward ordeal of pressing his entire insides against the corner where vertical wall meets horizontal metal. His feet are still dangling in midair. And, in retrospect, maybe he still would have fit fine if he hadn’t removed his pants. He really has no idea what vein of logic he was following, there.

He’s a very stupid and impulsive man and he hates himself in this moment for it. 

He begins to army crawl forward, inching his way across the expanse of five whole feet to the next room. It feels like it stretches on forever. It’s hot and dry in the duct. It makes his nose feel strange. He’s worried he might sneeze. He tries not to breathe often. 

Eventually, the light from the other side organizes itself into shapes cut into segments from the metal plating. He presses his face against it, bumping his nose. 

Mayor McDonnell is there. So are Mr. Granger and Mr. Cook. They’re all taking turns signing papers. Death warrants, Henry thinks insidiously. Handing over a woman’s life. Just... _imagine_ how wrecked poor Betty would be.

“This is all just very... It makes me feel horrid,” Mayor McDonnell says.

“It’s for a good cause, Randy.”

“I know. I doubt my constituents will be pleased, though.”

_“We’re_ your constituents, aren’t we? This is a good deal. New books for kids, new desks.”

...Okay. Okay, well the earlier conversation’s starting to make a little more sense, and Henry’s befuddlement from earlier is transforming into a feeling of deep foolishness. The air duct is hot and dry. His throat is parched. He might sneeze. His eyes water. 

“We only want the best for our children, naturally.”

“Of course. It’s just a little underhanded, is all.”

“No one would vote for this, Randy. The school budget hasn’t been passed in thirty years! The PTA is absolutely useless.”

Henry wants to shrink in on himself. 

“Still feel so horrible about the Hendricksons,” Mr. Cook says.

Thank you, sweet benediction. 

“I know. Dreadful.”

“Is there any headway in the investigation?”

“Well, the Sheriff says it was that Kovacs woman, remember? Court date is soon, right, Randy?”

“Right. I just want to get all of this out of the way. Horribly unpleasant. Very sad.”

“No joke. This has got to be hard on you.”

“Of course. We were very good friends, but it’s a fact of life. We all have to move on, eventually. I can only hope Eliza can pick herself up soon.”

“Well, shucks, her husband just died a few weeks ago. I wouldn’t count on it. Her constitution must be absolutely shattered.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only seen her a few times since it happened.”

“Christ.”

Mr. Granger picks up the papers and ruffles them. “Well, thank you so much.”

“Of course. Now, about that thing...”

“Oh, right.”

McDonnell takes something out of his pocket. Henry can’t see what it is. It’s paper. It’s...it’s probably money. No, it has to be money. Yes. This was a horrible idea, overall. He’s sweating and short of breath in the confined space. The metal sticks to his skin. 

“I hope that covers everything, I just... I can’t understand how this could happen.”

“Certainly a sick ticket.”

He shakes his head. “This is a good place, with good people. I just can’t understand.”

“A damn shame, I know, but we can’t dwell on it. It’ll all be over in a few weeks,” Cook says.

They must be still be talking about the Hendrickson murder. Henry feels slow on the uptake. It’s hard to breathe up here. 

“I just can’t comprehend what anybody would have against the poor fellow. He was a good businessman and a good Samaritan, as far as I knew.”

“Hell, I’m more confused that the Deputy didn’t have an extra eye on his own brother-in-law.”

“It’ll be over soon,” Mayor McDonnell says. 

“Don’t be so down, Randy. He’ll be avenged, once this is out of the way. Thank The Lord you managed to wrangle that Johnson fellow into the case,” Granger says.

Cook shrugs. “Shame about Lansietter, of course. He’s a good boy.”

“Shame? Nah. He knows what he’s getting into. He protects criminals for a living, after all. It’s a shady business that attracts shady people, that’s all I know.”

“Henry’s a decent man. _Someone_ has to represent Miss Kovacs. It’s what we stand for as a democracy, gentlemen.”

“Of course. We represent murderers because we need to be ‘fair’ and give schmoes jobs. Just wait; she’ll be simpering in her seat. She got no alibi. Lansietter’ll have to lie out of his teeth to give her a chance.” Granger fiddles with the papers, knuckles clenched.

“It’ll be over soon,” Mayor McDonnell repeats.

“Right,” Cook says.

“All the best, I suppose. Regretful circumstances.”

Granger scowls. “It’s _costly_ , that’s for sure. You know I don’t condone any of this.”

“Oh, be a humanitarian, Jeff! This has to do with so much more than money. A man was _murdered_ in cold blood!”

“Hey, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“It’s like... Like some heavy noise. Breathing.”

And then Mr. Granger looks up and stares Henry right in the eye.

Shitshitshitshitshitshit. 

He slams his head against the top with a sickening thud and furiously backpedals at the pace of a slug, inching his way out of the vent, heart hammering in his ribs. Bugger. Buggerbuggerdamnshit. 

Air hits his legs and soon enough the ground hits his back. 

“He--”

“We have to get out,” he gasps. He really can’t breathe. This is horribly inconvenient. 

“Wh--”

“Out! Out now. Come on, out!” He scrambled onto his feet, head pounding, and races out the door.

“But you--”

“They saw me! Come _on!”_ He skates awkwardly five feet before seeing the secretary at her desk and whirling around. “Never mind, let’s just go out the window.”

“Henry!”

“Window. Come on.” He pushes on it, but it doesn’t budge. Friggin’ old piece of crap. He kicks at it. His foot hurts. He really needs to stop doing that. 

“But Henry--”

He heaves and it slides open two inches. “Come on! Help me!”

They stand there. Useless lugs.

His mind feels wild and disjointed, right now. He strains against the window frame.

“Henry. We’re on the second floor.”

It’s open. It’s open. Come on, move, wait, can’t get his shoulders through, okay, good, wait, can’t get hips now, shit, what. 

“For Christ’s sake, Henry!”

That’s high. Sort of high. Not really. He could do that. Before Mr. Granger comes through that door, he could. 

“Henry!” He jolts at the hand on his shoulder. “Henry, what happened? Henry, what’s--”

He turns to look at Betty and his foot slips.

-

“Here are your pants.”

He snatches them from Josiah’s outstretched hand and gruffly puts them on. “We’re not discussing this,” he says.

“Of course not.”

“What happened?” Betty asks.

He scratches his head. Winces. “Mr. Granger saw me.”

“Mr. Granger was in there? You mean the butcher?”

“What other Mr. Granger, besides his father, grandfather, and four sons? Of course it was Mr. Granger, the butcher. And Mr. Cook, from the edge of town.”

“Oh.” Betty’s quiet for a moment. Henry takes the time to not think about how much every bone in his body aches. “Are we going to go to jail for this?”

“No,” he says. 

“Oh.” He starts to put his shoes on. “Are you sure?”

“No,” he says.

“This was pretty stupid.”

“Shut up.”

Josiah shuts up.

“It’s a town hall meeting. It’s a public event. The mayor’s been openly mentioning it for over a week, now. And maybe they didn’t see me. I don’t know. I might have gone a little nuts.” 

“A little? Henry, you _crawled out the window.”_

He shrugs. “How’d you guys get out, anyways?”

“The door,” Josiah says.

“Hm.”

“Henry.”

He rubs at his neck, cracks his back. Tries not to think about Mr. Granger’s eyes or his own stupidity or the fact the he was pantsless in front of Betty Hiyashi in order to squeeze his chicken legs into an air duct to listen in on the mayor. And he didn’t learn a damn thing. 

“Money exchanged hands. Something about school taxes. Something about the Hendrickson murder,” he says. 

“Money? How much money?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gosh.”

He rubs his eyes. “This was a batty idea from the start.”

“Your impulsive decisions usually are.”

“But why would he talk to me about it? Why would he mention it so much? Unless he wanted me to show up?”

“Maybe he did. Or maybe you’re just a kook.”

He shrugs on his jacket. The sun is hot. His breathing is difficult. He hates existing in a solid form. He hates consequences. He hates bad men who trick him. 

“I don’t know,” he says and his own voice sounds strange to his ears. 

“Are you okay?” Betty says, hand hovering over his right arm. He wishes she’d touch him. 

“Fine.”

“You’re wheezing.”

“It’s a hot day. I’m sweating bullets.”

She looks at him. He doesn’t like it when she looks at him. Or maybe he does. He’s not sure. She sizes him up. He feels naked and small. “It’s seventy degrees out.”

“You’re also wearing a dress,” he points out.

Her eyes slide to a relatively unruffled Josiah. “Of course,” she says. 

“What? Do you think I’m sick?”

“Yes.”

He scoffs. “I’m just under a lot of stress.”

“Of course.”

But he doesn’t like her eyes. 

-

“I have it,” Josiah says when Henry is staring at his ceiling, trying to swallow and think and wonder why he does stupid things. The police haven’t been knocking on his door and it’s obvious Mr. Granger saw him, _heard_ him, even. 

“The thing you wanted,” he prompts.

Henry’s head just circles itself. 

“The meat cleaver.”

“What?” He leans forward, chair legs skidding on the floor.

“Oh, now you’re listening.”

“Did you really get the meat cleaver or were you just trying to crush all my dreams underneath your freshly shined loafers, Josiah?”

He holds up a paper bag. 

“Mother Mary,” Henry says reverently, reaching out. “Oh, baby, let me hold you.”

Josiah makes a face.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I was talking to the meat cleaver.”

He yanks it away from Henry’s grasp. “I have one condition.”

He snorts. “Condition? You work for me. Your condition is that you remain employed.”

“Henry, you’ve gotta stop doing stupid stunts.”

“I think I gathered as much, today. You won’t be seeing me jumping from windows in my underwear, I promise.”

“Henry.”

“Mm?”

“Henry, I’m begging you, as your friend. Stop.”

He examines his shirt cuffs. 

“Henry. _Please.”_

“I’m trying,” he says shortly. “I really am, Josiah. I know it doesn’t look like it, but I just. I am.”

“Are you?”

“These things aren’t easy for me.”

Josiah rubs his face. He looks haggard and old in this light. Henry imagines Josiah older and married. It’s a horrifically easy thing to do. 

“No more shady dealings,” he says and the words are sour on his tongue. “I promise. I swear. I’ll stay straight.”

“Fine,” he says stiffly. “Fine. Here. Just...don’t get any of us killed.”

He takes the bag before Josiah changes his mind. “Believe me,” he says, “that’s the last thing I want. I’m a responsible adult, Josiah.”

Josiah grunts absently in reply. 

-

“This is yours.”

She props her head up on her hand. “Yes, Poindexter. You really are a genius, ain’t you?”

He grins uncomfortably. “Now, Miss Kovacs, is not the time for unpleasantries. I’m trying to help you.”

“A damn lot of good that’s done!” She narrows her eyes. “I don’t like you, Lansietter. I don’t like your smart attitude; I don’t like your smart clothes; I don’t like your smart talking. You think I’m some...some stupid country bumpkin. I don’t like that.”

“I promise, I never intend to demean or patronize you, Miss Kovacs.” She does that for herself, he thinks. 

She snorts. 

He sets his forearms down on the table, leaning forward. “Listen,” he says sharply. “I. Am. Doing. My. Best. What I’m doing for you, Miss Kovacs, is practically charity. No fool in the state would touch this case with a yard stick. You are a deadman walking, without me.”

“Remind me again how grateful I should feel. Yes, thank you.”

“And,” he says, “I am a deadman walking without you.”

She looks up from her study of the off-center placement of the ashtray. 

“If I lose this case, Miss Kovacs, my career is over. Your life is over. I need to win almost as bad as you do.” He gestures to the meat cleaver. “But if we’re going to win this, Miss Kovacs, we need to cooperate. I need you just as much as you need me.”

“Hn.” She wipes her nose on the sleeve of her cardigan. Highly unseemly. “That was bullshit.”

In the process of taking out his handkerchief for her, he freezes. 

“But bullshit I like,” she amends. “Bullshit I can get behind.”

“Yes?” He doesn’t look up. He stares at the table between them. He stares at the meat cleaver. Something off about it, he swears, but he can’t figure out what. The way the lighting hits it. 

“Yeah.” She nudges the handle of the cleaver. “And this? I told you, it was stolen around March.”

“Certainly. Do you have _any idea_ who could have stolen it? Who knew you owned it, for example? Who’d been in your kitchen?”

“My kitchen?” She shrugs. “My pap. A few friends, surely. Ahm, Suzie Schriber? But that was three months ago at best. Marianne Dolcer stopped by in late March. Mrs. Harrington and her daughter stopped by in January-ish. Winter.” She considers the list. “No one in early-to-mid March, as far as I can remember.”

“I see,” he says. “Well, we’ll have to keep our minds and ears open, won’t we?”

“You will.” She crosses her arms, sneering. “Look at where I am.”

“You’ll get to stretch your legs next Thursday.”

“Is that the court date?”

“Mmhm.”

She swallows. It’s the only betrayal of her nerves. “Better be ready by then, Lansietter.”

“We will,” he says. 

Wanda gives him a searching look. “Will we?”

“We have to be,” he says.

 

 


	10. Semblance of a Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry’s on a mission that involves getting Young Werther to move his ass and testify. Meanwhile, the town’s getting restless, Betty is out for blood (metaphorically, of course), and there’s something about that meat cleaver that just...doesn’t add up. **(Warning for intense racist dialogue.)**

“You gotta be a fool to think I’d let you into my house after that stunt you pulled last week, Mr. Lansietter,” Polly says leaning against the doorframe, bemused.

“Now _that_ wasn’t my fault, Miss Harrington,” he objects. “Wasn’t my fault at all. _He_ came to _me.”_

“My ma’s coming back in a day, Mr. Lansietter. You take that up with her.”

“About what? How she locks up her son in the attic?”

Polly frowns. “He’s not _locked up_. He does whatever he wants.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Young Werther can do whatever he pleases.”

Henry hums, fiddling with his sleeves. “If that’s so, could you tell him I’m waiting down here for him?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why? We’re rather good acquaintances, by this point.”

“Hearing from you is bound to plunge him into hysterics.”

“Well, give him the option, if you will. He’s a grown boy.”

Polly’s fists clench. She stares about his head, nostrils flaring. “Mr. Lansi--”

“After all, he does whatever he pleases. It’s so good to know you’re such a progressive family. You know, I’ve heard some real horror cases, especially from some social worker friends.”

Her eyes are bugging out of her head, malicious orbs piercing the air beside him. He finds himself thankful that she isn’t directing her gaze right on him. “Fine,” she hisses and whirls around. “Follow me.”

“Inside?”

“Yes, inside, you lug! Close the door behind you.”

He nods and complies like the gentleman he is, duly following her through the house to the staircase. “You wait here,” she snaps, before ascending. 

“Of course,” he says, grinning. 

Her eyes hold murder. 

He hears some sort of altercation commence, after a few moments. Something along the lines of:

“--can’t just--”

“--need to--”

“--whatever--”

An anxiousness builds in his chest as the minutes slide past. He’s not sure if the time Polly is taking is a good sign or not.

When she comes down with a very sour look on her face, he feels triumph blossom where doubt once festered. Nodding up the stairs, she says, “Go up. Don’t be loud. Leave when he tells you to. Tell me as soon as you do. Good day, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Good day, Miss Harrington,” he says. “Thank you.”

She grunts in reply. 

He climbs up the steps and knocks softly on the door. “Werther?”

The door inches open. One eighth of Young Werther’s haggard, wary face greets him. 

“Hi!” Henry says brightly. “Mind if I come in?”

It swings open and he walks himself in, taking in the walls and the bed and the table as though they’re worthy of being museum exhibits. It’s stiflingly ordinary, save for the clutter and the fact that it’s essentially the prison room for a social recluse. 

“So,” he says. “How are you, Werther?”

“Fine.”

“Mind if I take a seat?”

Werther shrug-nods. Henry takes that as a go-ahead and decides to plop himself down on the chair at the desk. Werther shuffles over to his bed and seats himself, back ramrod-straight and hands on his knees. 

“So,” Henry says. “I bet you can guess why I’m here.”

Werther mutters something under his breath.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“Please don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what, Werther?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Do what?”

He runs a hand through his hair, further disheveling it. Werther would have a handsome face, Henry thinks, if he cleaned up a bit. “You know.”

“I might. But I was here to ask you if you wanted to go out. Pete’s having a sale.”

“No, you’re not,” he says, scowling. “You’re here to ask me to testify.”

“...Maybe that too.”

Werther rubs at the fabric of his pants, staring at the floor. “Look,” he says. 

“Hm?”

“I just. I can’t.”

“Can’t testify?”

“I can’t do it, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Henry.”

He looks up. “What?”

Henry leans his side onto the back of the chair, trying to give the most genial expression he can muster. “My name’s Henry, Werther. No need for formalities.”

Werther shrug-nods. Or he might be convulsing. It’s hard to tell. “Well, I still can’t. I can’t... I can’t talk. I’m no good.”

“You’re plenty good, Werther. You’re pretty articulate around Miss Hiyashi and me.”

He hunches his shoulders and examines his shoes. “That’s... Well. I don’t. Different? I guess.”

“How’s it different?”

“Less people? And I. I was mad.”

“You were mad? Why?” Henry’s eyes trail absently over the desk, over scraps of paper and glue bottles and wooden pieces.

“Because you. You demeaned me. Like I was-- _Don’t touch that!”_

The screech sends shudders down his spine and he jumps, retracting his hand. “Sorry.”

Werther’s on his feet, frantically smoothing the back of his head. “Don’t. Touch that.”

He holds up both hands, palms open. “I won’t. I promise. Sorry.”

“That’s a Sopwith Pup. I just. It’s an in-progress model and it’s very _delicate.”_

He nods emphatically. “Right.”

“See, there you go.”

“Go what?”

“You don’t need to. Overact. I get it. Don’t nod like a bobblehead.”

Henry shrugs.

“You’re acting with me. Don’t act. We’re not equals,” Werther says. “You treat me like a child. I am no child. You placate me. Stop it.”

“Of course we’re equals.”

“No. You’re a self-made lawyer with a pretty girlfriend; I’m a retard holed up in an attic who makes WWI model planes to feel some sense of satisfaction.”

Henry bows his head forward, conceding. 

Werther takes a step toward him. “I cannot take the stand, Mr. Lansietter, because I am physically incapable of speaking before crowds and my mother may very well kill me if I do.”

“You mean that literally, don’t you?”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I mean everything literally. Yes. She might murder me. With our father’s hunting rifle, likely.”

“That’s illegal, Werther. She’d never get away with it. I doubt it.”

“Oh really? _Really?”_ Werther leans down, voice soft and biting. “It’d be a mercy killing, Mr. Lansietter. Poor woman couldn’t handle it anymore, poor family dealing with that...that _thing_ wallowing around their home.”

“Werther, I don’t--”

“A hero!” he cries. “Jesus! A martyr!”

Henry sighs deeply. “That’s certainly a concern.”

Werther shrug-nods. “Yeah. I mean, well. There’s also Howie. Howie’d never let me.”

Henry stands up. Werther retreats a few steps in response. “Werther,” he says evenly. “You don’t have to do everything Deputy Warren tells you.”

“I don’t!” he says, eyes wide. “I don’t. But I want to.”

“Werther, why would you want to confine yourself even more? You’re obviously frustrated here. If you, you know, if you show the town you’re worth something, that you have--I don’t know--agency, I’m sure things can only go up.”

Werther bites his lip. “Don’t pressure me.”

“I’m afraid I have to, Werther. An innocent woman’s life is on the line.”

He inclines his head toward the desk, gesturing to a model. “That one? The Fokker F.I Triplane? One of Werner Voß’s planes. Howie got that for me.”

“That’s very nice of him.”

His eyes trail along its contours, desperation leaking into his face. “I just. I can’t hurt Howie, Mr. Lansietter.”

“I don’t want you to, Werther.”

“If I get up there, I’ll hurt him.”

“Werther,” Henry says. “You’ve got to help me. Wanda and I need this from you. _Justice_ needs this from you. It’s the moral thing to do.”

Werther says nothing. 

“Do you want ice cream?”

“I’m not allowed to leave,” he mutters.

“Screw that. Do you _want_ to get ice cream?”

“Yes. But I won’t. Because I’m not allowed.”

Henry looks out the dusty window. The sun is at high noon. “You get lunch, Werther?”

“Sometimes. I don’t keep track.”

“Do you eat with your family?”

“Sometimes. I don’t keep track.”

Henry arches a brow and scuffles his shoe against the wooden floor. “How about I get you lunch, huh? A skinny guy like you has to eat.”

“Don’t bribe me. I don’t like it.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Yes, I do,” he admits. “But you really shouldn’t. And I really shouldn’t accept. I can barely use a fork, Mr. Lansietter.”

“I doubt that, Werther.”

“No. Seriously.”

Werther stares at his hands, head bowed. 

Henry takes a step forward, palms outward. “Werther.”

“Get out,” he says. 

Henry hesitates. 

Werther nods to the door wearily. “I’ll think about it. I will. Now leave.”

Henry’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, of course, so he says, “Thank you,” thinks a moment, adds, “and she’s not my girlfriend,” and does just that.

-

“Thanks, Suzie,” he grunts when the girl sets his Coke down on the bar. 

“No problem, Mr. Lansietter,” she mumbles through her gum before sliding away. 

Now, don’t misinterpret him. He’s not brooding. He’s _recalibrating._ If he can’t get Young Werther to testify, that’s fine. Completely fine. Henry’s nothing if not resourceful. Scratch that, Henry’s a _master_ of resourcefulness. You could drop him in the middle of the savage Appalachian wilderness with nothing but a rusted butter knife and the clothes on his back and he could make something of himself. He’s sure of it. 

Court’s the same deal. Only replace the knife with his brilliant rhetoric and the clothes on his back with, well, the clothes on his back. He’ll be alone, but that’s fine. He’s been alone his whole damn life. And this isn’t brooding. This is simply _observation._ Henry is impartial in all proceedings, up to and including his own glamorous life. 

“So,” a voice says. Henry glances to his side and catches sight of a hairy forearm. Said arm connects itself to a polo shirt, which leads to a neck and eventually the face of Mr. Granger. Henry tries to play it cool at this realization. Mr. Granger with the eyes, the eyes that saw Henry in the duct and oh Jesus. “So. I hear you’ve been stepping out with a Ching-chong girl.”

“Her name’s Betty,” he says sharply. “And she’s a Japanese-American, Jeff. For Christ’s sake.”

He shrugs. “I don’t like that trash, Henry. Nobody does.”

“Nothing’s trash,” he says as smoothly as he can, his metaphorical hackles rising. “Betty’s a nice, wholesome woman, Jeff. I assure you our interactions are strictly professional.”

“Stepping out with an Orient,” he says. “What would your mother say?”

Henry clenches his jaw and feels his tendons jump. He doesn’t think about his momma. He won’t. He can’t. “Jeff,” he says, calm, so calm, calm, calm, calm, “I have a lot on my plate right now. I don’t need you gossiping like a hen.”

But Granger’s face is filled with abject disgust, still. Henry doesn’t know what to do about that. He feels a sort of detached wonder. That’s a shame, he muses. That’s a damn shame. Distant anger sizzles in the pit of his stomach, like dying coals. 

“Henry,” he says, “you’re a good guy. You’re a swell fellow, but defending these murderers and dating these Japs ain’t doing you no favors.”

“Ice it, Granger,” he hisses. “I have no quarrel with you, you hear? You leave me to my business and I’ll leave you to yours.”

“That Johnson fellow says you’re not very trustworthy. I’m starting to have my doubts about you and your ‘business.’ ”

He takes a long drink from his pop. Just to, to calm down. Calm down from his calmness. By this point, he must have achieved a zen state. “Why do you have to bring this up, Jeff? I’m just lazing about here, try to catch a few breaths. I don’t need to catch any grief with ‘em.”

Granger fiddles with the salt shaker. “We’ve all been hearing some awful unsavory things, is all, Henry. Concerning things. I’m thinking of the children, you understand.”

“Pure politics, Jeff. You know how that skullduggery can get.”

He shrugs. “I just, you know. I keep hearing these things and they make sense. They make complete sense. You always were a little queer, you understand?”

Henry shakes his head at that idiotic statement, frustrated. So damn frustrated. “If anyone here’s queer, it’s you,” he says. “I have a plan, Jeff, even if it doesn’t make much sense. And maybe I’m _tolerant_ of people, even Japanese. How crazy is that? Does it make me a commie? I’d hate to think so. Better a commie than a Nazi, I say.” He rubs at the condensation of the bottle, the muscles of his arms quivering. “And you know what, Jeff? Maybe I defend people because _somebody_ has to do it. Maybe I do things because I want to be a _good person_ , Jeff, which is certainly more than I can say for some meat-grinder small-time politician sitting on his ass--”

Jeff Granger smacks him. 

It’s more like a loose punch than a smack and it whips him right upside the head, like an overly violent cuff. It hurts. It hurts real bad. Jeff Granger looms over him as he doubles over, clutching his face, skin reddening with pain and embarrassment. 

The diner falls dead silent. 

Oh, God, Granger is so huge. He’s enormous compared to Henry, who’s small and slight and pale and delicate and hates this fact with every fiber of his being. He feels his heart palpitate and flutter with wild fear. He’s sick with thoughts of what Granger could do to him. 

But no, Granger just looms and breathes and stares. 

“I’m not going to fight you,” Henry says cooly. 

Granger says nothing, only purses his lips in confusion. 

Henry lifts his rag doll body off the polished wood and resumes drinking, trying to ignore the tremors in his wrists. He is nonchalance. He is coolness. He is immaculate. Granger cannot touch him. No one can. 

He does wrinkle his nose a few times to feel the skin of his skull stretch. That really hurt. He needs to learn how to shut his mouth in time to avoid sucker punches. 

Granger opens his mouth, closes it, and withdraws from his side. Henry doesn’t watch him go. He doesn’t move until he hears the chime of the door swing open and closed. Then he slumps forward. 

Suzie comes up with a bag of peas. He takes the offer. “He sure hit you mighty hard, Mr. Lansietter,” she says. 

“I suppose.”

“Grossest thud I ever heard. When you hit the counter? Yikes. You might want to get that bump checked out.”

He shrugs. 

She leans on the bar. Henry’s pretty sure she should get back to work, but he doesn’t say anything about it. “Thanks for defending Betty, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Of course,” he says, adjusting the bag and trying not to wince. 

She touches his arm. “No, really,” she says. “She’s one of the nicest people I ever met, Mr. Lansietter. Damn shame.”

“Damn shame.”

She fiddles with her notepad. “Mr. Lansietter,” she says.

“Yeah, Suzie?”

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but _are_ you two stepping out?”

He wishes. “Of course not, Suzie. Anything to the contrary is simply not true. We’re very good friends and I don’t understand why a man and a woman can’t be that without any complications or heresy.”

“I completely understand, Mr. Lansietter. And you’re right. It’s just not fair.” He hands back the bag of peas and she takes it. “You want me to report Mr. Granger?”

“No, that’s fine,” he says, pulling out his wallet. “I don’t want anymore trouble.”

“Ignorant people all over,” Suzie sighs.

“Oh believe me,” he says, lips quirking, “you certainly don’t need to tell me that.”

-

Betty is simply livid. “A plea bargain!” she snaps, slapping the paper in his face before he can get his second foot in the door of his office. “The nerve!”

Henry puts up his hands in self-defense. “I expected this at some point.”

“You did?”

He glances to Josiah, who shrugs. “I tried to explain,” he says, though Henry seriously doubts that he made a decent effort. 

“Does that mean we’re not going to court?”

“Tell me the cop,” he says patiently. 

“The what?”

“What’s his offer?”

Her arms fall to her sides. “I... Life in prison.”

“State, I take it?”

“Yes?”

He shrugs his jacket off and drapes it over his chair. “I see.”

“So did we lose already?”

“No,” he says. “It’s just an insult, is all.”

“Insult?”

“If Miss Kovacs pleads guilty,” he says, “she’ll have to accept these conditions. Life in prison. Beats the death penalty, certainly.”

“But she’s innocent!”

“Exactly. So we’re not going to accept it.”

Josiah cringes. Henry sees him. He chooses to ignore it, a callous feeling glossing over the cavity of his chest.

“This is an all or nothing bid, though, Betty. I want you to understand that and I want Miss Kovacs to understand that as well.”

She nods with wide eyes. “Of course, Henry. Definitely. So what do we do?”

“I’ll return it with a denial. I’m not entertaining him.”

“Well, I should hope n--” She pauses, eyes drifting over his face. “How’d you get that nasty bump?”

“Foolishness,” he says. 

“Foolishness,” she repeats. She says nothing more on the subject, however. 

He sits down at his desk, rubbing at his temple. He’s practically stabbing it, though, which exacerbates his distress more than it alleviates it. “Everything’ll be fine,” he says. He stares dully at the contents of his desk, which consist of a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a magazine on Country Living, and that stupid meat cleaver.

“Hey,” he says. 

“What?” Josiah grunts.

“Why’s there a bunch of notches in the handle?”

“What do you mean?”

He gestures to a series of grooved indentations wrapping around the middle. “That. It’s like someone bit it.”

Josiah wrinkles his nose. “Who the hell knows? It was like that when I got it.”

“Hey, Betty, does Miss Kovacs like to chew on stuff, her own kitchen appliances in particular?”

She arches a brow, fiddling with her purse. “Not that I know of.”

Henry hums, leaning in. 

“Hand it back to the police and tell them about it,” Josiah says.

“I might.”

“Henry,” he says sharply. 

Henry chooses to ignore him. “Betty,” he says, “I’d greatly appreciate it if you could talk to Miss Kovacs about this.”

“Why can’t you?”

“She...trusts you.”

She tenses her jaw in understanding. “I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

He nods. “Of course.” He looks out the window. At the street. At the sky and the people and the barbershop and Mr. Granger’s butcher shop. His face still throbs. He tries not to think too hard about how that makes him feel. “Definitely.”

-

“My name is Sophie Lansing,” he said and it flowed smoothly through his throat, instinctual. He almost wished it wouldn’t. He wished it would catch, mangle itself, prove to him that it was ugly and wrong and unnatural. But no, it rolls easier off his tongue than his real name ever will. 

Sophie was a friggin’ stupid name and he hated dressing in drag to go with it. He felt as though he was fetishizing the female lifestyle, like he was one of the pervert men. 

His momma didn’t know how terribly she degraded him with this treatment. 

“My name is Sophie Lansing,” he said, “and I live just on Edison Street, over yonder. My momma’s Harriet Lansing.”

And Mrs. Davis tittered back at him, as women do, useless gossip about his momma and him and his pop and “I hear you step out with Robert Brown.”

He tried to to bristle at that. No, instead he did that smile momma told him to make. “Robbie and I are very good friends, Mrs. Davis. Nothing so far as that as I know.”

Mrs. Davis giggled that shy, girlish giggle that just looks churlish on old women. Henry felt nothing but scorn. 

He hated older women. He hated book clubs. He hated county fairs. He hated wearing white dresses. He hated wearing white dresses _at_ county fairs while discussing book clubs. 

“You young things are always so coy,” she said and dropped her hand. “You’re almost eighteen, aren’t you? I expect you’ll be looking for a man soon enough and Robert Brown is quite the catch. You’re very lucky.”

He smiled again, a tight, polite smile that pulls at the apples of the cheeks and gives him artificial dimples. His momma taught him how to smile, as all mommas teach their children. Your strength is in your passivity, they seemed to say. Be good and quite and stay at home. 

Which--don’t get Henry wrong--was a fine message for certain groups. Henry, however, should be out there, chopping wood and playing ball and learning about mathematics. Not talking about book clubs. Or Robert Brown, for that matter. 

“I suppose so. Thank you very much, Mrs. Davis,” he said and he pitched his voice up and its was a defenseless maneuver that people called ‘polite’ for some reason. He sounded like a gravelly-voiced baby. 

“And you’re such a pretty thing,” Mrs. Howard said. Great. Now he had _two_ old women to entertain until he could escape.

“Thank you, Mrs. Howard.”

“Such a cute one. And very nice hips. You and Robert would have such lovely children.”

Henry thought about bearing children and was nearly sick. He thought about conceiving children with _Robert Brown_ and wretched into the air. 

“Are you alright, honey?”

“Yes, thank you,” he said brightly, when he got his breath back. “I haven’t been well lately, I’m afraid.” The insinuation of the homosexual act! The nerve of these women. And. And the thought anything going near his, uhm. Best not to go down that road before he _really_ wretched something fierce.

“Oh. You might want to get that checked out with the doctor, then, Sophie, sweetie.”

He nodded, making that stupid smile again. “I definitely will, Mrs. Davis. Thank you for your concern.”

“You might want to get some pop for that cough at the convenience store, if that rations’ll allow you,” Mrs. Howard said.

Mrs. Davis shook her head. “I just don’t understand how people get to be so horrid, starting wars like that. Rations are worth it if we can just end this conflict.”

“Which reminds me,” Mrs. Howard said. “You know the Nekoya family business, downtown?”

“Do I ever!” 

“Having a sale, you know. On garden appliances. For the whole Victory Garden push.”

“We should boycott them,” Henry said viciously. “I don’t like having a bunch of damn Japs running around. They’re all spies for their motherland, the lot of them.”

“Oh, Sophie. Your daddy’ll be home, soon, don’t worry about that.”

“It isn’t about that,” he said. “It’s a matter of principle and national security. I hate Japs; everybody hates them. They’re practically subhuman. They worship a...a sun god or some baloney, and their emperor is a deity. Tell me they’re not whacko.”

“Sophie,” Mrs. Howard said, “that’s a very unchristian view.”

He shrugged. “My pop’s fighting for his life and our lives, out there. Tell me why I shouldn’t be upset.”

“We’re not saying that, Sophie,” Mrs. Davis said, “but calling those folk...subhuman sounds a bit Nazi to me.”

“Well, if Lindbergh became president, we wouldn’t think that was such a bad thing,” he snapped.

Mrs. Davis shuffled, staring at the dirt. “It’s Christ’s way: We gotta love our enemies. Even when they _are_ the worst of the worst. You’ll change your mind, someday, honey.”

“I doubt it,” he said dryly.

“How’s your mother?” Mrs. Howard asked.

“Coping,” he said. “She’s doing well, considering, what with pop off fighting Japs.”

Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Howard turned the conversation back to...to _book club!_ The nerve there, too. His righteous anger terrified them. He only felt more justified, after this strike. 

And...and _God,_ he was so _stupid_ , back then. 

Henry’s not sure if he was so awful back then, so vitriolic, just because of his dead-eyed mother or if she only intensified it. He’d like to say it doesn’t matter, but he’s concerned that it actually does.

And tomorrow he has another big day and the trial day is closing in around his neck like a noose and he tries not to let the fear get to him, tries not to let it crawl its way out of his throat and into the world. 

Thank God, his pop died, he thinks to himself. Because he needed a good kick in the rear to wake and toughen him up. Thank God, Sophie never existed, he thinks to himself. Because she was a hateful bastard. 

 

 


	11. Waiting for Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry has conflict with Betty, learns grammar, interrogates Kovacs, and comes up with a lot more heartache than answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking about what Sam said about trans representation and “slash” fiction, for a while. As in, for months. And I’m sorry it took me so long to get back on this issue. I have a lot of emotions about it and I’ve been trying to articulate myself in a civil and comprehensible way. I think it’s very sad that we don’t have better stories for you, Sam.  
> Most stories about trans people are very sensationalist. They debase and deconstruct trans people to their parts. What do people find interesting about us, Sam? Our bodies. Not our stories or our experiences. Our bodies. That's all they want to write about, because that's all they care about. Our bodies.  
> Of course I’m only one person with one opinion. I don’t speak for everyone. I don’t think it can be denied, however, that we deserve to have stories about us that don’t force us to compromise. Representation is important because it shows us that there are options. There are options for you other than grabbing a knife or starring in a porno. You are a human being, not an object, not a hood ornament, they can try to take it away, but only you can really let them, Sam.  
> 

Henry’s on the John when the door to his apartment comes alive with knocking. “Just a second,” he calls out and washes up quickly. Betty Hiyashi is not a woman he wants to leave waiting for any length of time. 

Betty’s face greets him when he opens up. “I need to speak to you,” she says. 

He takes a step back. “Well, come on in, then. Is something wrong?”

“Yes? No? I don’t know.” He takes in her fretting posture and gestures for her to walk in. “Thank you,” she says stuffily. “This isn’t... I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s good or it’s bad.”

“Well, tell me what it is, first.” He leans against the doorframe. 

She turns to face him. “My folks are having dinner tomorrow. They were wondering if you wanted to show.”

“Me?” he splutters. 

“Yes, you.”

_“Why?”_

“Well, you’re working Wanda’s case. She’s a good friend of the family.”

He rubs his arms, swallowing thickly. “Well, shucks, Betty, the court date’s just looming right now. I’m not sure if I have the time.”

“At least consider,” she says.

“Certainly. Is that all you came to talk about?”

“No.”

“Ugh.”

She arches a brow. “ ‘Ugh’?”

“Well, it’s probably about Miss Kovacs and that means it’s probably bad news.”

“I’ll have you know that it _is_ about Miss Kovacs, yes.”

He rubs his neck, sighing deeply. “What about Miss Kovacs?”

“She’s quite worried. Somebody _did_ send her death threats, after all.”

“It was a letter of dissent at best, a threat at worst. But just _a_ threat, not a _death_ threat. She’s misconstruing things.”

“Regardless.”

He rubs his face, clenching his jaw tightly. “Regardless.”

“I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d help.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” he says, an edge making its way into his voice. He feels hollow inside, empty and loose and _tired_ and _helpless_. He doesn’t know what to do. Everyone turns to him, but he doesn’t have the answers. 

Betty fiddles with her purse. “I know,” she says. “I know, Henry. I know. But are you using your efforts _smartly?_ You do all this running around--you jumped out the Town Hall window for Chrissake!--and what does any of it amount to?”

He shrugs. He isn’t sure what to say to that. He really hasn’t been putting his best foot forward with her, all things considered. 

“I’d really like for you to come to dinner,” she says. 

He looks up at the sky, purses his lips, knows what he has to say on that one. “I’m afraid it just wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“You’re working Miss Kovacs’s case. We’re being polite, is all.”

“It just isn’t, well, the town ain’t been, you know, with me being me and you being you, I just. It wouldn’t help either of us if people noticed I went to eat at a Jap’s house, you see?”

She looks down at the ground, biting her lip. She says nothing.

“I want to,” he says lowly. 

“Well,” she says shortly. 

And Henry wants to tell her about Mr. Granger, he wants to tell her about his pop, he wants to hold her in his arms and tell her every rotten thing that’s ever happened on God’s green Earth and he wants her to cling to him so that it’d be appropriate for him to cling back and he wants her to tell him all the rotten things she’s ever seen or heard and he wants them both to just rot in misery, together. He wants to take her in his arms and kiss her face. He wants a lot of stupid, senselessly cruel things. 

He opens his mouth, but he can’t find any words. She won’t look at him. He feels sick. “Betty,” he says. 

“I gotta go, Henry,” she says. 

“Betty, I’m sorry.”

She shrugs, turning away. “It’s...understandable.” And that’s all she says. That stupid, banal sentence. And she leaves.

And Henry watches her go. And he feels gross, inside, that slimy thing inside of him twisting and turning. Because it’s not understandable, that much is sure. But he lets her go. And that’s his call, it really is. He lets her go and he thinks about Mr. Granger and wretched, wretched, he thinks of his pop and dull, dull. He feels like he did something wrong. He isn’t sure what. 

There’s no time to consider. (Stupid, banal lie.)

-

“I see you’ve been making enemies around town.”

“Don’t you think you should be more worried about your case?” Henry grunts. 

Johnson frowns distastefully. “That is none of your concern, Mr. Lansing.”

He shrugs. He has a witty reply, surely, some brilliant dialogue and snappy Bogart comeback that would leave Johnson rolling on the floor in sheer existential and intellectual agony, forever scarred and unable to practice law for the rest of his miserable existence. But he doesn’t use it. He chooses to ignore Johnson.

Johnson does not take kindly to this option. “Mr. Lansing,” he says, “I am here to exchange information between the prosecution and defense.”

“Oh, don’t act like it’s some charity,” Henry mutters, and no, he will not remove his eyes from his desk. He will not look at Johnson. He will become too angry, he knows this. He _knows._ And impulsivity is not going to help him. “You’d have to do it eventually.”

Johnson hums. “As you know, the murder weapon belongs to your client. The movement of the knife fits the physical profile of your client. The relationship was stormy at best between the victim and your client. Certainly, breaking out of custody does not look good for your client. The--”

“Certainly not,” Henry agrees evenly. “But I’d like you to look at this.” He slides a slip of paper across his desk, not lifting his eyes. The note. The damn note that Johnson most certainly wrote, that cheating bastard.

“I didn’t write that,” Johnson says. 

Henry makes a mistake. He looks up. It’s a very stupid mistake, because he sees Johnson’s smug, stupid...disgusted face?

“The hell you didn’t!” Henry snaps, waving the paper erratically. 

“Why,” Johnson says patiently, “would I make such an obtuse grammatical error if I were writing this? Surely, you must have a higher opinion of me than that.”

“What,” he says, befuddled.

Johnson gingerly tugs the paper out of Henry’s clenched fist and smoothes it out. “ ‘ **Ron Hendrickson, the man who you so viciously robbed of his life, will not have died in vain.** ’ That is what it says, does it not?”

“Well, yeah.”

Johnson sighs heavily. “Mr. Lansing, it is _the man_ ** _whom_** _you so..._ et cetera. This is a gross error. I have much more dignity than that.”

“Oh,” Henry says.

“Also, Mr. Lansing, a note of this nature is highly illegal. It’s a threat! I would be off the case and with criminal charges, myself.” He gives Henry a pointed look. Henry feels bile rise in his throat in response. “Of course, any criminal with ambiguous history should not represent in court.”

“Definitely,” he agrees. Did he agree too quickly? Did that look bad? Suspicious. Oh God, he agreed too quickly. Nuts. 

Johnson doesn’t appear to make anything of it, though. “If that’s your only concern, may I continue?”

“By all means.”

“Ahem. Your client’s press isn’t favorable. The victim’s wife was with her brother, the night of the murder. Your client’s own father can’t speak for her whereabouts that night, either. And, as we both know very well and I must stress, the murder weapon was a meat cleaver that matches the description of _your client’s_ missing utensil. Is there anything I’m missing?”

Henry fiddles with the corner of his desk. “Yeah. Werther Harrington _witnessed_ the murder and says it couldn’t have been Kovacs.”

“He’s unfit for testimony,” Johnson says dismissively. “You can’t confirm anything he says, anyways.”

“No,” he says. He thinks of the teeth marks on the meat cleaver. “I suppose not.” 

“Though, I do suppose I have one additional note.”

“Shoot.”

“Pardon, Mr. Lansing?”

Henry rubs his face. “Tell me, Mr. Johnson. Please.”

“Mr. Hendrickson, the victim, was apparently waiting for someone, the night he was murdered.”

He looks up, screwing his face in confusion. “Waiting? For whom?”

Johnson shrugs. “The police are working on it.”

“How did you come into this information?”

“Witness testimony.”

“Who?”

He raises his chin. “The mayor, McDonnell. Someone who is in control of his facilities and happened to overhear Hendrickson whilst perusing his store. Someone whose testimony means something.”

Henry’s teeth start going to town on his cheek again. He needs to break that habit, he really does. McDonnell. Shifty Irishman. He swears to God, he’s going to corner that man some day on his own terms. No spying, no after-hours threats. He’s going to get answers out of that slime ball. “Why did he come forward now?”

“He didn’t think it was important, before.”

He tries not to roll his eyes. “Typical.”

“I know,” Johnson says stiffly. They share a tendril of commiseration over the stupidity of normal people before it is severed by their mutual distaste for the other. “Other than that new information, I have nothing.”

He nods. Alright. 

“How about you, Mr. Lansing?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you have anything to tell me which I did not cover?”

He’s staring at him pointedly. Henry doesn’t like that. He thinks of the teeth marks. “Well,” he says and his mouth feels a little dry. “I suppose, yes.”

“Really, now?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how important it is, but there is something...off on that meat cleaver.”

Johnson arches a brow. What a dramatic twat. “ ‘Off’?”

“Someone bit into it. Hard.”

“Bit?”

“Uh, yeah. Bit. Gnawed on it,” Henry says, feeling stupider by the second.

Johnson staring at him doesn’t help. “And what’s that supposed to mean for the case?”

“I don’t know! I told you, I don’t know how relevant it is.”

“I find my news far more relevant.”

“Well, sorry! Last I checked, we had different jobs.” Henry runs a hand over the back of his neck, agitated. “It’s not my job to prove anything.”

He isn’t sure what to make of it, really. The whole business with the meat cleaver, with Johnson, with all this trite shit he has to put up with. He thinks of Indianapolis, he thinks of old men and he thinks of respect, all the damn respect he could have had if only he hadn’t had that stupid, stupid impulse to... Well, Betty had been pretty. She had been so pretty. 

But he was loathe to blame Betty. 

Johnson is staring at him. Henry decides he hates the way Johnson stares at him. “Look,” he says, tries not to sound testy, “at me. I have my own workload, Mr. Johnson. I don’t need you hounding me ‘til Kingdom come. Save it for the courtroom. We both know you have the upper hand here. No need to get so anxious.”

Johnson says nothing. He only blinks.

Henry tries not to let it phase him, can’t let it phase him, nothing bothers him, he’s steel, steel, he reminds himself. Steel. “Good day, Mr. Johnson,” he says with firm finality. Yes, firm. Definitely firm. Definite. Strong. 

Johnson sighs a sigh that makes Henry feel like less than dirt. “Yes, good day, Mr. Lansing,” he replies as he turns to leave. 

Henry closes his eyes. Steel. 

-

“You don’t know where this came from?” he says, pushing it toward her. 

Wanda scoffs. “You think I chew on all my kitchen appliances, Mr. Lansietter?”

“No,” he says. “I think someone else did.”

She shrugs. “Maybe someone else did. What’s that prove?”

“It proves someone else had your meat cleaver!”

“Unless someone ate it while it was still in my home. I dunno. Rats? My pap? Hardly an...airtight thing, there, Lansietter.”

He shakes his head. “Miss Kovacs, so far there’s been strong evidence against you. This is a sign of a possible crack where there had been nothing but mortar previously.”

“Speak plainly,” she snaps. 

“If someone else gnawed on your meat cleaver,” Henry says, summoning upon his irregular patience, “that someone was probably the real murderer of Hendrickson.”

“But who?” she asks, befuddled. 

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “And that’s not my problem, Miss Kovacs.” Or, it wouldn’t on a regular day. This is far from a typical case, however. He needs to figure this out. He needs to find a solution, her life depends on him and it seems like everyone is doing his damnedest to put a wrench in all his efforts. 

“I’m trying to think of people who could of done it,” Kovacs says. “I come up with nothin’, every single time. And I know the people here way more than you do, Mr. Lansietter.”

“Then it has to be an unexpected person. Someone with a relation to Hendrickson that you weren’t aware of, or a relation to Hendrickson of a nature that suggested a...false pretense to the rest of town, as it were.”

“I see you nosing around the word ‘wife,’ Lansietter. It wasn’t the damn wife.”

He taps his pen on the table. “We need to cover all bases with this case, Miss Kovacs.”

“That woman’s in mourning, Mr. Lansietter. Can’t you leave her well enough alone?”

“Regardless,” he says, and finds his words at a loss for a moment. He tightens his jaw. He thinks of Betty. He wishes he could go to that dinner. 

“Look,” she says and when he looks at her, she is very tired. Or maybe it’s the lighting, “if this is gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. I don’t wanna draw this out more than it has to.”

He isn’t sure what to say to that. 

“I shoulda... I shoulda known Ron’d get the last damn laugh. I got no power in this situation, I never got no power in any situation. You men, you don’t get it. You think, just ‘cause you get out of shit, just ‘cause you can talk to other men and figure out a man’s solution, everyone else can afford to. It just ain’t the case.” She pushes her hair away from her face, blinking fiercely. “That man,” she says, “that man wanted me. And he’s gonna take me to the grave, since he has to. Men _get_ what they want. Women _give_ it.”

Henry’s eyes dart to the desk. He knows what to say. He doesn’t say it.  

“I know you don’t understand,” she says, “I _know_. But you gotta accept that I’m right. You’re gonna lose, Mr. Lansietter. Ron wanted something before you did. So he’s gonna get it. I know you men are used to having things handed to you, you’re used to being forgiven for your slip-ups, you’re used to privilege and prestige and highfalootin shit, but this time, you ain’t gonna get it.” 

“You’re right,” he says. He feels her eyes on him. “I don’t understand.”

Her chair creaks. “Then can we just do this and get this over with?”

“No,” he says. “No, I’m not just going to let you die. That’s just. It’s not proper. You’re innocent. Innocent people don’t get the rope. They shouldn’t.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand anything.”

“You’re right,” he repeats. “ _I don’t understand._ You’re a woman. I’m a man. I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman. I _can’t_ know. But you could help me understand your _situation_ better, Miss Kovacs. You could do that anytime. You could explain this whole Hendrickson issue between you two. You could help me out a mighty lot.”

“You’re fucking delusional.”

He taps his fingers on the table. “You think,” he says lowly, “that just because I don’t know what you’re going through, I haven’t been through anything? Because that makes _you_ ‘fucking delusional.’ ”

She purses her lips for a moment, eyes darting off to the side. “I can’t tell you,” she snaps. 

“If it has bearing on the case, Miss--”

“It doesn’t,” she says quick, face strained. 

Henry finds himself thinking, briefly of white picket fences and big footballer boys walking down by the park at dusk. He swallows it back down. No bearing on the situation. 

“Henry,” Deputy Warren says, from the doorway. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

“That’s fine,” he says, pushing away from the table. 

Kovacs stares at him, her face strained and desperate. 

He decides not to say anything, certainly not the right thing, though he knows what it is. It’s not the right time for the right thing and besides, the right thing makes his stomach turn. (A typical occurence, he supposes.)

Warren flinches when he shoves past him. 

Fucking delusional. Henry thinks of Betty’s family. He thinks of Mr. Granger. He thinks, briefly, of Robert Brown. Fucking delusional. 

Well, we can all afford a few delusions. Merciful lies, they’re called. 

Merciful. Right. He blinks away the vile, ignorant things in life. 

Fucking delusional. 

 


End file.
